Wilsonville High School launches new Wildcats mascot logo

School spirit for the Wilsonville Wildcats just got a makeover.

Wilsonville High School officially announced the launch of the school’s new Wildcats mascot logo at the Monday, Sept. 9 West Linn-Wilsonville School Board meeting.

“Last year, we did the inventory and I think there were about 35 different (designs of) cats around the school — and probably double the number of Ws,” Principal Kelly Schmidt said at the meeting.

Schmidt joked during the meeting that the older logo, known now as the legacy logo, appears to be more of a cougar than a wildcat.

Technically, a cougar is a type of wildcat, but that didn’t change the fact that the legacy logo was difficult to print and scale after 30 years of use.

The legacy logo will still be utilized by WHS and is beloved by many in the community because of its hand-drawn, bespoke style. That design was created in a student art competition when WHS opened in 1995.

“I started in 2022; that summer we met as an admin team and Principal Schmidt said, ‘Hey, one of the things I’d like you to take on is unifying our mascot,” said WHS athletic director Josh Davis. “Every (athletic) program has their own ‘W’ and their own Wildcat and that’s how I thought, going into year three, it was time to take this challenge on.”

Davis worked with students, coaches and administrators to develop ideas for the new unified Wildcat mascot logo.

“We started with a company called VIP branding; they’re the ones that helped Riverside High School,” said Davis. “When we kind of narrowed it down to some selections, that's when I put a small group together. I had a couple of teachers, a couple coaches and some student feedback.”

The school settled on the new mascot logo in part because of the “W” featured on the mascot’s face.

Davis added that the athletics department would continue to collaborate with students about deciding on a final Wilsonville “W” that could be aligned across all sports teams and student spirit apparel.

Some of the teams, such as Wilsonville football, have their own Ws that are used on team apparel. Eventually, the new branding will extend to most, if not all, of the school’s athletic teams.

“They’ve sent us some good ‘Ws’ and it’s about, what makes us ‘us,’ right? What makes it our own?” said Davis. “The big thing was that unity, bringing every program and everybody together under one symbol.”