Many schools and sports teams boast an iconic mascot. The University of Minnesota has Goldy, the Minnesota Twins have T.C. Bear and Edina has its hornet.
“I wanted a better costume,” says Laurie Wilson Spencer, who helped design the current costume. “I wanted something similar to the hornet on our website, not a bee.”
Spencer worked with Edina High School’s (EHS) athletic director at the time in order to replace the previous costume in October 2008. The motivation behind her decision to replace it? “I think the last one was a bee costume from a Halloween store,” says Spencer. Perhaps a cute mascot isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the logo for EHS and the Hornets certainly isn’t a fluffy little bee. It’s a hornet brandishing its stinger.
So, with an idea in hand, Spencer started her efforts to upgrade Edina’s mascot. With experience working with the folks at Disney parks, she already knew what a quality mascot costume would need. She approached local company Mascots and Costumes, which also made Goldy for the Gophers, and presented her idea. Alas, like many things, the first rendering wasn’t quite what she was looking for.
“He looked like The Incredible Hulk,” Spencer says with a laugh. “All I thought was, ‘Well, this is going to scare the kids’ so we went back to the drawing board.”
The second rendering was perfect, she says, and that’s when she shared it with the student council and asked them to present it to the athletic board. Loving the new design, the council presented it to the athletic board, and the rest is history.
Now at 10 years of age, the Edina Hornet is often seen at city and sporting events, and this iconic school spirit costume has become an important part of the Edina community.
