Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 1, 1994                   TAG: 9401010087
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

GUN-TOTING MASCOT IS SHOT DOWN

His pencil sketch of a patriot wielding a musket has decorated hundreds of school sweatshirts, hats, T-shirts and newsletters since 1981.

Now, the 20-year-old college student says he is distressed to learn that the design will be altered by the removal of the musket from the patriot's hands.

"The gun belongs there. It's a part of history," said Sullivan, a pharmacy student at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Earlier this month, the city's elementary school committee agreed to remove the musket from the logo because of parents' concerns that a gun-toting symbol might be inappropriate.

The patriot is a reproduction of the school's namesake, Revolutionary War hero Hugh Mercer, Sullivan said.

The school committee will phase out the musket after existing T-shirts and sweatshirts are sold, but it has not decided what will take the gun's place. A flag has been suggested.

The committee's action was the subject of a report by National Public Radio. And it prompted a discussion on political correctness by nationally syndicated radio talk host G. Gordon Liddy earlier this week.

Rick Pullen, whose daughter is a second-grader at the school, originally questioned why the school had a gun-toting mascot.

"With the atmosphere of violence going on today, schools should not be sanctioning a gun," Pullen said.

Sullivan said he came up with the sketch and the name "Patriots" after looking through history books about Mercer.

"Every book I looked in showed Hugh Mercer with a musket," Sullivan said. He drew the picture with the help of an artist friend. "If you see a patriot in the history books, you're likely to see him with a gun in his hands, because he was trying to protect his land."

He understands parents' concerns but thinks the mascot is being made a scapegoat.

"I don't see that taking a gun out of the elementary school mascot's hands is going to do any good," Sullivan said. "No little kid is going to look at that picture and say, `He has a gun, then I can carry one, too.' "