Sugarbeeters win, advance to nationals

The Chinook High School Sugarbeeters again have made it to a national tournament, some 82 years after a trip to nationals gave them their mascot and its name.

"The 'Sugarbeeter Nation' takes pride in sporting one of the nation's most unique mascots and would like to thank everyone for supporting Chinook schools with their votes," said Chinook Public School Superintendent Jay Eslick in a press release issued Thursday after the second round ended. "The championship round will pose another challenge to the students, community, alumni and supporters throughout the nation — Get out the vote, 'Beeters."

The Sugarbeeters took a commanding lead in USA Today High School Sport's Best Mascot competition after the second round of the contest was extended due to server overload, and won the competition by more than 320,000 votes after the second round closed Wednesday at 1 p.m. Mountain Time.

Online voting in the final round started this morning at 9, with the Sugarbeeters competing against the Carbon High School Dinos of Price, Utah; the Centralia High School Orphans of Centralia, Ill .; the St. Mary's Episcopal School Turkeys of Memphis, Tenn .; the Key Key High School Obezags of Annopolis, Md., and the Kingswood Oxford High School Wyverns of West Hartford, Conn.

USA Today High School Sports selected five unique mascots from each state and the District of Columbia in the first round of voting.

In Montana, the Sugarbeeters competed against the Nashua High School Porcupines, the North Toole County High School Rangers from Sunburst, the Powell County High School Wardens from Deer Lodge, and the Whitewater High School Penguins.

The Sugarbeeters won the first round with 40,180 votes, with the Wardens scoring 24,214, the Refiners in third with 6,153, the Penguins gaining 496 votes and the Porcupines getting 230.

In the second round, competing with the winners from Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas, the Pratt High School Greenbacks of Pratt, Kan., took an early lead, but the Beeters were edging them toward the close of the round, originally scheduled to end last Friday.

When traffic started overloading the USA Today servers, the publication announced last Thursday it was extending the voting into this week.

The Sugarbeeters closed in on and passed the Greenbacks and won with 2,767,229 votes, with the Pratt High School mascot taking second with 2,442,257.

In third place was the New Castle Dogies of New Castle, Wyo., with 306,588 votes.

Some contentious chatting took place in the comments section of the Web page where people were voting for Region 5. Supporters of the Greenbacks complained that their votes were not counting or were counting for other teams — the site stated a 10-minute delay would occur before votes showed — and that their team was winning last Thursday and the voting should have ended then.

Others slammed the Greenbacks supporters, accusing them of poor sportsmanship.

In her comment on the site, Margie Arriola-Wakeham of Salt Lake City, formerly of Chinook, said she was having the same problems as the Greenback supporters in casting her votes — but Chinook still took the lead.

"But really listen, people …," she wrote, "let's be fair. The Sugarbeeters! The MOST Unique H.S. Mascot? Sugarbeeters! (Not the cutest [maybe the Greenbacks,] tallest [how about the Dusters,] most appealing [the Swifts are looking pretty awesome,] or even the dumbest [the Suga- well, maybe we'll address "the dumb thing later.") On what world would the Chinook Sugarbeeters not be the most unique H.S. mascot in the U.S., or even on Earth? There isn't a single other mascot on the list that comes close to the Beeter's uniqueness; the culture of Chinook, Mont .; the spirit and determination of the people who were born there, raised there, and, in some cases, lived and died there."

The Sugarbeeters took their name when the owners of the Chinook sugar beet processing plant helped pay the way for the Chinook High School basketball team, then known as the Tigers, to compete at a national tournament in Chicago after Chinook won the state championship in 1929.

The name tied well to the community's economics and culture. Sugar beet production and processing was a major force in the Chinook area until the processing plant, which still stands east of town, shut down in the 1950s as production shifted to other parts of the state.

The national competition, where the Sugarbeeters will face the winners of the other five regional contests, began today at 9 a.m.. People can place their votes on the USA Today High School Sports website at http://contest.usatodayhss.com/.