From the humble Medfly to the current Sid the Sloth, Shorewood has had the tradition of the seniors naming the freshman class since the Class of 1986. When the tradition first started, most of the names were items or concepts, meant to make fun of the freshman class. Over time the focus of the class names has shifted to characters from popular media at the time. The first character to be chosen was Bamm-Bamm from the Flintstones (Class of 1987), only one year after its introduction. Only items and concepts were chosen from then until the Class of 1992, where the freshman class was named Oscar the Grouch. The class names then alternated between items and characters until the class of 2011, the Happy Meals. After that, every class has been named after a character from a popular or relevant show, movie, or video game.
Throughout Tammy Ceesay’s 21 years teaching at Shorewood, she’s noticed that the freshman class names have followed a similar pattern. “They’ve been consistent with some kind of pop culture reference that is current at that time or possibly a reflection of something from that group’s childhood. They tend to choose characters or animals or a reflection of the class and who they are,” said Ceesay, who has seen many classes named and has often served as a class advisor.
Other than the announcement, which she thinks left the freshmen confused at first because it wasn’t direct, she loves the new mascot name this year. “Sid the Sloth is someone who perseveres and has a great attitude and still keeps trying,” she said. “That’s a very big positive.” Other students, such as Geo Mathias, also love the name. “I think it’s really fun, more of a positive one than some of them have been,” said Mathias, though they do think the name is slightly irrelevant. “I think maybe a few years ago it would’ve been a more appropriate name…[and] I wish we would’ve been able to nominate names.” But if seniors were able to suggest names this year Mathias was “fully expecting it to be skibidi toilet.” Perhaps the freshmen can count themselves lucky that there weren’t nominations this year.
Even though some of the freshman class names are chosen to make fun of the freshman class, such as Dirt from the class of 1989, or chosen based off of popular memes at the time, such as Among Us from the class of 2024, Ceesay still loves the idea of class mascots:“It brings the classes together as a community.”
