These high school logos may look familiar to Mountaineer fans

CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) — It’s no secret that high schools often take inspiration from college or professional sports teams when designing their logos. Bridgeport High School is based on the Kansas City Chiefs, Lincoln is based on the University of Cincinnati and Notre Dame is…Notre Dame. But how many schools across the U.S. have taken inspiration from West Virginia University?

In a recent trend on Twitter/X, users have taken the time to map out every high school in their home state using logos. Some of these maps have led to reactions from users who recognize the logo of a team they follow being used by a high school. WVU is one of those teams.

Here are just some of the schools that have used WVU’s “Flying WV” logo as inspiration for their own.

West Muskingum High School | Zanesville, OH

West Muskingum High School lies in Muskingum County, Ohio, just about two and a half hours west of Morgantown. This logo is often used interchangeably with a logo depicting the school’s mascot, the tornadoes.

The school’s enrollment for the 2023-24 school year was 369 students.

Water Valley High School | Water Valley, TX

Much farther away from the trees and hills of West Virginia lies Water Valley High School located in West Texas. This school’s take on the Flying WV can vary in its depiction, but the most-used version appears to be the one on the left where the WV is shown inside an outline of Texas and next to a Wildcat, the school’s mascot.

The school’s enrollment for the 2022-23 school year was 109 students.

West Valley High School | Hemet, CA

Bearing the most similar logo on this list to WVU’s, West Valley High School sits in Hemet, California, about three hours east of Los Angeles. The logo seen above appears to be a secondary logo for the school, which tends to use the logo of a horse more often as its mascot is the Mustangs.

The school’s enrollment for the 2022-23 school year was 1,898 students.

Wapsie Valley High School | Fairbank, IA

Wapsie Valley High School is unique on this list as its logo has evolved over time. The photo on the left depicts a version of the school’s logo from 2006 that looks very similar to WVU’s logo. Since then, Wapsie Valley has adopted the version shown in the photo on the right, which removes the serifs and makes each edge more rigid.

The school’s enrollment for the 2022-23 school year was 304 students.

Western Valley Conference | Sioux City, IA

An honorable mention on this list goes to the Western Valley Conference in the Sioux City area of Iowa, which is made up of nine local high schools.

So how can schools even do this? A common rumor surrounding these modified logos is that they must change the source material by around 15-20 percent in order to avoid legal consequences. This is a myth.

The Georgia High School Association says that all a school (or anybody) needs to do with a trademarked logo in order to make it their own is change it to a point where it isn’t “confusingly similar” to the source material and no longer violates the U.S. standards of trademark infringement or dilution .

Put simply, the schools listed above are required to change their logo to the point where nobody looking at it would easily confuse it with being WVU’s logo or something officially licensed by WVU.

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