Midland's Rebranding Succeeds

When Midland Lutheran College in Fremont used to mail enrollment information to prospective students each fall, many of those who received the orange-and-black envelopes tossed them, thinking they were junk mail related to Halloween.

Up until 1919, the spooky color combo at least made sense. That year, the school changed its mascot from a tiger to a warrior.

The warrior mascot was intended to play off the Viking heritage of the Swedish and German Lutherans who founded the college, but somewhere along the way, the "warrior" began to be portrayed as a Native American.

That created a culturally insensitive, hideously hued nonsensical identity for a school that, because it was called a "college," led many potential students to believe it was too small. Because of the word "Lutheran" in the name, it made others think that only Lutherans were allowed to attend.

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