Pekin Community High School District 303 is a public school district in

Pekin, Illinois Pekin () is a city in and the county seat of Tazewell County in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located on the Illinois River, Pekin is the largest city of Tazewell County and the second most populous municipality of the Peoria metropolitan area, a ...

, that operates one high school, Pekin Community High School (PCHS). the school has 1,780 students. The campus includes its principal campus buildings totaling of space; these buildings house 133 classrooms, the 600 seat F.M. Peterson Theater, two gymnasiums, a

natatorium A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable Human swimming, swimming or other leisure activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built ...

, and several computer labs.

Controversies

Mascot controversy

From the high school's founding until the 1981 school year, the

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

team was officially named the "Pekin Chinks", represented by a red dragon logo, done in part to represent the town of Pekin's wrongly supposed relation to the Chinese city of

Peking } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

. The team mascots were a male and a female student who would wear stereotypical Chinese attire, calling themselves the "

Chink ''Chink'' is an English-language ethnic slur usually referring to a person of Chinese descent. The word is also sometimes indiscriminately used against people of East Asian, North Asian and Southeast Asian appearance. The use of the term des ...

" and "

lette", and striking a gong whenever the team scored. In previous eras the community had almost no

Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...

residents. In 1974 members of the National Organization of Chinese-Americans took offense to the name and suggested to municipal government employees that the sports team should have a different name. The members asked the mayor and the city attorney to intervene but the response was that they were unable to. The area Chamber of Commerce argued that the community took opposition to the idea of the mascot being offensive. That year, a vote was conducted within the

student body A students' union, also known by many other names, is a student organization present in many colleges, universities, and high schools. In higher education, the students' union is often accorded its own building on the campus, dedicated to social, ...

to change the name, and the vote ended in a landslide victory for " chinks" at 1,034 votes to 182. In 1975 the ''

Peoria Journal Star The ''Journal Star'' is the major daily newspaper for Peoria, Illinois, and surrounding area. First owned locally, then employee-owned, it became a Copley Press entity in 1996. In 2007, the paper was sold to Fairport, New York-based GateHouse M ...

'' stopped including the mascot name in the publication. A second vote received similar results. As time passed additional publications no longer included the mascot name. The school stopped displaying statues of the mascots. In 1980, the school board forced a name change to "Pekin Dragons"; a name that has stayed to the present. By the 1990s, some graduates from the pre-dragon era of the district have expressed a desire for the original name to return, despite being criticized for being degrading, racist, and lacking common decency. Historian

James W. Loewen James William Loewen (February 6, 1942August 19, 2021) was an American sociologist, historian, and author. He was best known for his 1995 book, '' Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong''. Early life Loewen ...

noted that the name "Dragons" was also problematic, given that Pekin had been notorious for being a statewide Ku Klux Klan headquarters in the 1920s, with the Klan owning the ''Pekin Daily Times'' for several years, and with a prominent Klan leader still living in Pekin in 2005.

Kevin Pummill

In April 2019, a web page on the website ''IdentifyEvropa'' connected Kevin Pummill, a PCHS social studies teacher, to messages under the name "Undercover Academic" on an Internet site of white supremacist group

Identity Evropa Identity Evropa () was an American neo-Nazi and white supremacist organization established in March 2016. It was rebranded as the American Identity Movement in March 2019. In November 2020, the group disbanded. Leaders and members of Identity Ev ...

. PCHS started an investigation, and the teacher resigned early in the investigation. The district superintendent said that the school confirmed that "the teacher made a number of troubling and offensive posts" on an Internet site. At first the school district refused to name Pummill as the teacher involved. The superintendent later said that "the school is not aware of any instances of discriminatory conduct against students by the teacher" but did not say whether the investigation was complete.

Notable alumni

Scott Altman Scott Douglas "Scooter" Altman (born August 15, 1959) is a retired United States Navy Captain and naval aviator, engineer, test pilot and former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of four Space Shuttle missions. His fourth mission on STS-125 was ...

, retired

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

and

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

captain *

Everett Dirksen Everett McKinley Dirksen (January 4, 1896 – September 7, 1969) was an American politician. A Republican, he represented Illinois in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. As Senate Minority Leader from 1959 unt ...

(class of 1913), politician representing Illinois in the

U.S. House The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

and

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

Larry Kenney Larry Kenney (born August 5, 1947) is an American voice actor and radio personality. Early life Larry Kenney was born August 5, 1947 in Pekin, Illinois, the son of George and Joyce Kenney. He has a brother, Steven, and a sister, Jody. He graduat ...

, voice actor and radio personality *

Mark Luft Mark A. Luft is a Republican member of the Illinois House from the 91st district since January 13, 2021 and the mayor of Pekin since April 2019. The 91st district, located in the Peoria metropolitan area, includes all or parts of Banner, Bar ...

Illinois House of Representatives The Illinois House of Representatives is the lower house of the Illinois General Assembly. The body was created by the first Illinois Constitution adopted in 1818. The House under the current constitution as amended in 1980 consists of 118 re ...

member and Pekin mayor * D.A. Points, professional golfer * Jerald D. Slack, retired

Air National Guard The Air National Guard (ANG), also known as the Air Guard, is a federal military reserve force of the United States Air Force, as well as the air militia of each U.S. state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the ter ...

major general * Dave Snell,

Bradley Braves men's basketball The Bradley Braves men's basketball team represents Bradley University, located in Peoria, Illinois, in NCAA Division I basketball competition. They compete as a member of the Missouri Valley Conference. The Braves are currently coached by Bri ...

commentator *

Richard Stolley Richard Brockway Stolley (October 3, 1928 – June 16, 2021) was an American journalist and magazine editor. He is noted as the founding managing editor of ''People'' magazine and for acquiring the Zapruder film for ''Life'' magazine in 1963. ...

, founding managing editor of ''

People A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

'' and ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...

'' journalist responsible for obtaining the

Zapruder film The Zapruder film is a silent 8mm color motion picture sequence shot by Abraham Zapruder with a Bell & Howell home-movie camera, as United States President John F. Kennedy's motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November ...

Rick Venturi Rick Venturi (born February 23, 1946) is a former American football player, coach and current broadcaster. He served as the head coach at Northwestern University and as longtime National Football League assistant coach known for his defense. ...

, sports broadcaster and former football player and Northwestern head coach

References

External links

Pekin Community High School District 303
{{authority control Pekin, Illinois School districts in Illinois Schools in Tazewell County, Illinois Public high schools in Illinois 1867 establishments in Illinois School districts established in 1867