Best high school mascot in Vermont: Top 5 candidates

From Gumbies to Slaters, meet the best high school mascots in Vermont

High school mascots often materialize in extemporaneous fashion.

Vermont is a perfect state to exemplify that assertion, and you'll know why when you read about the Flying Turtles.

SBLive Sports' love for unique mascots with interesting back stories has been well documented.

We've crowned Hodags and Imps the past couple of years in national high school mascot contests, and now we're taking a spin through every state.

Over the past couple of months we've been going from Alabama through Wyoming featuring each state's best high school mascots, and then giving readers a chance to vote for their favorite. Our Vermont poll posted Nov. 28 on highschool.si.com and will stay open through Dec. 5:

Vote: Which is the best high school mascot in Vermont?

Here are the top five high school mascots in Vermont:

Fair Haven Union Slaters

Fair Haven is known as the Slate Center of the Nation because of its slate quarries. Fair Haven Union not only chose to be called the Slaters thanks to the importance of slate to the town’s economy, the school’s physical Slater mascot is among the best in the nation.

Green Mountain Valley School Gumbies

From the “Why Gumby?” section on the school website: “In the late 1980s, the GMVS girls soccer team was making a run at the state championship title. After one game, a reporter asked the team what their mascot was. They looked at one another – they didn’t have an official mascot – and in a moment of creativity, one girl spoke up. ‘Well, we’re flexible, we’re agile, we’re fun…I guess we’re the Gumbies.’ The name stuck.”

Montpelier Solons

Montpelier, the center of democracy as the state capital, is the Solons in honor of the ancient Greek lawmaker Solon, who's often credited as setting the groundwork for the Athenian democracy that became a model for modern democracies. And the Solons' physical mascot is Screech the Owl.

Vermont Commons Flying Turtles

Shelly the Flying Turtle is Vermont Commons' mascot / Courtesy of Vermont Commons

This nickname came about on the fly when a Vermont Commons volleyball coach went to register the team. Peter Goff told vtcng.com, “We were asked for a team name. The school had the turtle as part of its logo, so we said, ‘OK, we’re The Turtles.’ The woman behind the desk said, ‘The Turtles? That’s not very scary,’ so we thought a moment and said, ‘How about the Flying Turtles?’ and the rest was history.”

Woodstock Wasps

Woodstock's sports teams are the Wasps and its school newspaper is The Buzz. Daphne Zuniga, aka Princess Vespa from "Spaceballs," is a former Wasp. Sting, unfortunately, is not.

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-- Mike Swanson | swanson@scorebooklive.com | @sblivesports