“Name that Year” is designed to put your knowledge of Tracy and its newsmakers of the past to the test. Each week, we will publish a news item that ran in a past edition — maybe it was a major event, or a story about a Tracy resident — it’s up to you to determine in what year that particular news item hit the pages of the paper:
• A NEW TRADITION BEGAN THIS YEAR IN TRACY AND MILROY HIGH SCHOOLS.
The paired football and volleyball teams from the two schools were called the “Panthers” last week for the first time.
Previously, THS teams were known as “The Scrappers” and Milroy teams were known as the “Spartans.”
The “Panthers” was chosen by both student bodies and the results were announced for the first time Friday. The name was one of five considered, with Titans, Blue Knights, Battlers and Sting Rays being the others. Students voted on all five initially this fall. Then a second vote was taken considering only the top two in the first vote.
THS Principal Jim Creager said the final vote was close between Panthers and Blue Knights, but he wouldn’t reveal what the final total was. The principal said a student contest might be held to design a new “Panther” athletic logo.
For a time this fall, the Tracy-Milroy athletic teams operated without a nickname. The name “Blue Devils” was selected by students last spring. But after objections to the name surfaced, student councils from both schools decided to vote on a different name. Most Tracy and Milroy extra-curricular sport offerings are paired during the current school year for the first time. It was decided by representatives from both schools that a new nickname for the teams would be chosen rather than continue on with the old Scrapper and Spartan nicknames.
• Last week’s answer: The year was 1980 when a Hadley woman was struck and killed by lightning while playing in a Box Car Days softball tournament.
