Discover The History Of The Hickman Kewpies: SCHS Homecoming Rival

Well guys, this Friday a big game is coming up for Smith Cotton High School!  It's Homecoming weekend, and I'm sure a lot of you are excited.

After all, it's not just the excitement of the game, it's the parade, the dance, all the preparation and hard work that went in, and all that goes with it.

But, let's be real, a LOT of you care more about the game. Which is fair, a lot of people think football is fun!  And of course you want to support our Tigers.  So how can you do that, other than listening to the game at 6:45 Friday night?

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You can learn a little bit about their opponents coming to town, of course! Knowing your opponent is key to understanding how to defeat them, after all.  So when you're listening to the play by play in the stands as you watch the game, and you're getting your good luck charms ready, you can share a few of these little tidbits with the others in the stands.   Here are a few questions (and answers) about Smith Cotton's opponent, the Hickman Kewpies.

Full disclosure, I know some of this because my ex-husband's children went to school there. Oh, and my boyfriend NJ went there.   ON WITH THE QUESTIONS!

SIX QUESTIONS TO GET TO KNOW THE HICKMAN KEWPIES

1. What in the name of god's green earth is a Kewpie?

Well, a Kewpie is a doll.  That's the short answer. Kewpies became popular in the early 1900's after they were created for a comic strip by Rose O'Neill that was well known at the time. Basically, they're similar to baby Cupid, which is where the name comes from. It was so popular that porcelain dolls were made of the characters, which made the creator a very, very, very rich woman. After the success of the dolls, she got smart. She didn't just sell dolls -  they sold dishware, rattles, soap, pepper shakers, coloring books, poetry collections, and stationery with the doll's pictures on them.  Which again, made her very rich. Like, the highest paid female author at the time rich.  And she was doing this BEFORE WOMEN COULD VOTE.  And you know Rose totally used those characters to promote suffrage, right?  You know she did.

2.  Why is their mascot....a Kewpie?

Well, here's the story as was told to me. Before the current school was built (think pre WWI), the secretary of the school kept a Kewpie doll on her desk.  Cos, you know, they were SUPER popular, and everybody had one of those little porcelain things.  I don't know why it happened, but she put her Kewpie doll in the  middle of the court before a big basketball game started.  You'd think, oh jeez, that thing is toast, right?  Naw.  The doll made it through the game intact.  So, they took that as a sign of good luck and ran with it.  Also, since the dolls had a motto that they said in the comic, "Keep Smiling", the adults thought that was a good message for the athletes.  And of course it is, keeping a positive attitude is always commendable.

3.  What is a CRESSET and what does... that have to do with them?

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Okay, I didn't know what a cresset was either. Basically it's a lantern?  It's a metal basket type thing attached to a pole that you put oil in and light.  Why do we care about that?  The Hickman yearbook is named The Cresset.  So that's why.  It's part of what carried over from the old building Hickman replaced (built it right on top of the old building), which had been around in the 1880's.

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4.  How old is this school, anyway?  Is it as old as Smith Cotton?

Yes, it is about the same age as the Smith Cotton Junior High building.  Their high school is the oldest in Columbia, and it was built in 1927. A dude named David H. Hickman decided to donate some of his land (that used to have a horse racing track on it). Smith Cotton opened in 1925, so just a little bit sooner.

5.  Do they have any famous graduates?

Oh man.  They do!  The most famous graduates of Hickman include the Walton brothers.  Yes, those Walton brothers that started Wal-Mart. Fredrick Chapman Roberts went to school there - which admittedly is not a name you probably heard a lot, but I did a report on him once - who is a Nobel Prize winner for work he did that led to Jonas Salk getting to the Polio vaccine. Which is huge.  But they've had some athletes (like Yvonne Anderson), some authors (including the first gay author who wrote an book where a lesbian couple ends up together and happy at the end), the first black woman to fly in the Air Force (Marcella Hayes), a few politicians.... OH, and Claire McCaskill graduated from there, too.

6.  Okay, but what's the dirty secret?  There has to be something!

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Well, there are...tunnels. Apparently there are a series of tunnels under the school that connect to another school in town.  But, there's varying accounts of if they're usable, what they were for, are they still connected, etc.   But they are there.  In fact, students of the school newspaper got pictures of them back in the 2010's.  As far as I know, nobody is allowed to use them due to safety reasons.

So now, we've learned a few things.  Here's hoping knowing a little about our opponent will... I don't know.  Somehow make the game better?  Maybe.  Anyway, enjoy the parade, the game, the dance, all of it.

Kewpingly yours,

Behka