C. Ian McLaren - Cougar Pride

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This year, one of the goals of C. Ian McLaren, has been to develop our sense of school pride and getting along in our Character Education program. We decided to focus some of our energies on our school mascot the cougar. Part of our Character Education plan focuses on the cougar characteristics such being strong, independent and caring for your young.

The cougar mascot came to McLaren a few years ago. Mr. Ted Thorne, who is currently the principal of Millarville School, was the vice-principal of C. Ian McLaren School. He helped the students to come up with an animal that could be the mascot of the school and so the Cougar mascot was created. Cougars, as many know, frequent the area of the High Country. We also share this mascot with Mount Royal University in Calgary.

To make the cougar visible as a mascot, we have a cougar displayed in the School entrance, in the gym and on our school letterheads. We also give out small beanie baby cougars at our Character Education assemblies. The newest place that we have for the cougar is the school office. Last fall, we contacted the art teacher, Christi Tims, at Oilfields High School to see if there was a student who was willing to take on a mural painting of a cougar on a bare wall at the office.

Anna McDowell, a Grade 10 student, from Oilfields's High School, was the willing volunteer. She has been coming over to our school since before Christmas to work on the mural of the Cougar. She began by creating her own sketch. From there she drew it on the wall. After that she began the process of painting and spent many hours at the school on lunch breaks and after school. The results are incredible. The attention to detail is amazing. We feel so fortunate to have had the use of her talents. It is just about complete and she has done an outstanding job! We are so fortunate to have the talents of young people like Anna in our community.