EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a weekly series on our region’s history coordinated by the Trumbull County Historical Society.

Vienna Centralized School (now Mathews High School) was established in 1915. As of now, there has been no evidence found indicating that there was a mascot at the school’s inception.

In the 1929 Annual of the Trumbull County School System, a photo of the Vienna High School boys basketball team shows students in uniforms with “VHS” stitched on them, short for Vienna High School.

No mention of a mascot can be found in the first Vienna High School yearbook in 1936, called “Vi-Hi,” which was a nickname for the high school. However, the school’s newsletter, Vi-Hi Lights, contained a headline in 1942 that read “Flyers Crush Fowler High.” This is the first mention of the “Flyers” as the school’s mascot in the Vienna Historical Society’s archives.

Per Helen Clower, Vienna High School Class of 1944, a mustang plane was adopted as the school’s mascot while she attended. The plane was a homage to the airport being built during wartime. The official name adopted was the “Vienna Flyers.”

There were no yearbooks published from 1937 through 1948. “The Gold Dust,” the yearbook published in 1949, provided no evidence of an actual “Flyers” logo. It was not until the 1953-54 school year that a Vienna Flyers logo appeared on sports uniforms in a yearbook. The girls track team and girls softball team donned an image of a plane with the words “Vienna Flyers.”

The consolidation of Vienna and Fowler schools in 1961 formed the Fowler-Vienna School District. At that time, Vienna Centralized School was renamed Mathews High School after former teacher, Ithel F. Mathews. The “Vienna Flyers” and the “Fowler Wolverines” mascots were thus retired. Vienna’s school colors were red and white, and Fowler’s school colors were orange and black. The color red from the former Vienna School and the black from the former Fowler School were chosen to create the district’s new school colors: red and black.

The first page of the 1962 yearbook indicates that a mustang plane was the school mascot. In the 1969 yearbook, images of a mustang plane still appear on sports uniforms. However, in the same yearbook, members of the boys basketball team are seen running through a giant banner with a mustang horse logo painted on the paper. This marked the first image of the horse mascot visible in a high school yearbook.

The 1969 class ring was the last one to feature the mustang plane on it. There was no sign of a mascot in the 1970 yearbook, and it did not appear on any sports uniforms, but the 1970 class ring had a mustang horse featured on it.

In the 1971 yearbook, varsity cheerleaders had uniforms on with what appears to be a mustang horse in the upper right corner. The mustang horse was also displayed on football helmets during the 1971-72 school year. Since then, the mustang horse has been a prominent feature on sports uniforms as well as marching band uniforms.

For the full article about the history of the school mascot with photos, visit: https://www.viennapedia.org/schools.