Local Students Spearhead Effort To Change Pine Bush High School Mascot

Hudson Valley Schools Make Changes To Mascots and Names

In 2025, there was a state mandate to eliminate Native American mascots and imagery at all schools across New York State.

Schools were given a deadline of June 30th, 2025 to make the change.

Local schools began to make the change as the Ketcham Indians became the Ketcham Storm and other schools followed suit.

Some schools took longer than others to make the change. In Port Jervis there was a push to keep their name Raider name. In January 2025, social studies teacher Kelly Decker stated his case for keeping the name.

Read More: Why One Orange County School Will Not Be Changing Their Name

By March Port Jervis had made a final decision. They would not be picking a new name or keeping their old name and would be referred to as Port Jervis.

Pine Bush High School Students Push For New Mascot

Students from another Hudson Valley high school are hoping their name will be changed soon too.

According to a social media post, Pine Bush students are "spearheading an effort to change the school mascot." The current mascot is the Pine Bush Bushmen.

In a statement release on the Pine Bush Central School District's website administrators wrote "At Pine Bush, we value our students’ voices and believe in giving them meaningful opportunities to share their ideas and perspectives."

They add:

During a recent board of education meeting, our student representatives presented a proposal for the board to consider changing the Pine Bush mascot from the “Bushmen,” a symbol that has represented our district for many decades.

This is currently just a proposal but the school states that they are "open to engaging in thoughtful dialogue about it."

PBCSD continues by adding:

Should we decide to move forward, we are committed to ensuring that the process is inclusive and provides all members of our school community and community at large the opportunity to participate and be heard.

If there are any updates regarding the name it will be shared on the school website or their social media pages.

Pine Bush Community Shares Their Thoughts on Possible Mascot Change

While there is no suggested name in the running yet, the Pine Bush community had some great suggestions in the comment section on the high schools Facebook page.

One person wrote:

Changing the name to something alien related would bring the towns fun alien culture together. Definitely would help with marketing, T-shirt’s etc…

Another added:

A mastodon or mammoth would be cool. The first one found is across the street from the high-school.

The Pine Bush UFO's has a cool ring to it.

We'll update this story with any addition information that is released.