“I didn’t feel like we were discarding anybody’s history by removing that and covering that picture up,” Principal Mark Mischke said of the purple mural by the counselor’s office.
Students walked in first quarter to a previously unknown mural depicting dinosaurs. Near mid-quarter, Mischke asked Art Teacher Ciann Jackson to paint it black.
“Mischke was freakin’ out about it and said we should take it down because it was bad and [the mural] wasn’t really a good representation of what our students here can do,” Jackson said. “He said paint it black, but I had more purple paint, so we painted it purple.”
Mischke had his own reasons for covering up the mural.
“I didn’t really have a feeling either way,” Mischke said. “It had some pencil writings on it and stuff like that; it looked a little rough.”
Murals aren’t made for a particular class, but BHS art students decide for themselves if they want to paint one. Student artists are currently working on a “pixelated” mural to replace the football mural next to the computer labs and a new mural for the library.
In the interim, student council hung up the recently signed RAVE mural where the dinosaurs once roamed. How long it will stay there is still being decided.
“Student Council asked to put the RAVE mural up, which I thought was a nice touch,” said Mischke. “Maybe we visit about what that looks like long term, whether or not that stays somewhere in our building. I’m kind of brainstorming on that idea.”
