Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Confederacy Loses the Battle of Quartz Hill : Education: Board agrees to dissociate the high school from the Old South symbolism. ‘Rebels’ nickname will be kept.

Johnny Reb was decommissioned Wednesday night as the Confederate flag-waving symbol of Quartz Hill High School in the Antelope Valley after a debate between those fighting for school tradition and those who say the tradition is a racist anachronism.

The Antelope Valley Union School District board voted 4-0 for Supt. Robert Girolamo’s recommendation that Quartz Hill High “eliminate all Confederate Army symbols from every aspect of the school, while maintaining the name, Rebels.”

While the board decided to get rid of the Confederate symbolism, they agreed to keep the character known as the Rebel.

“We’re all rebels. There’s nothing wrong with it,” said the NAACP’s Linda Thompson-Taylor. “But there’s no place in our society for what the Confederacy represents.”

While the Rebel will live on, he will lose his Confederate flag, the symbols on his uniform, and perhaps his uniform altogether. Exactly what form he will assume will be left up to the students to decide.

The decision was not popular with everyone. “No one even knows what the Civil War is about anymore,” said health teacher Sharon De Shane, who wanted to keep the flag. “Ask any student.”

And Sanie Andres, a 17-year-old senior, said school spirit had plummeted since controversy began.

“How can you have a spirit flourish under a symbol of oppression?” asked another speaker, Maceo Keeling.

Student Micah Dash said he considers the Confederate flag “as severe a symbol as going to school where the symbol is a storm trooper and a swastika.”

Wilda Andrejcik, president of the school board, had predicted that the compromise--which will cost the district $5,000 to $6,000--would upset some community members.

“But, then, we always have those elements in any community.”

He added: “What it comes down to is that we can’t afford to come to odds over something as simple as this. We have much bigger roads to cross and rivers to swim, don’t we?”

The issue was not as clear cut to some of Andrejcik’s fellow board members.

“I really hate to see this kind of strife in my community,” said board member Sue Stokka. “I do wish we could all accept our differences and get on with our lives. . . . But, it is not at all clear that this compromise is fair.

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“I have a heritage from both sides of the Civil War,” she continued. “My Confederate family fought very hard for what they believed in. I am proud of them for that. Again, I just don’t think that it is easy here to say what is most fair to the community.”

Stokka abstained from voting, but did not protest when she was counted as a yes vote.

“That war was so long ago,” said Fred Lienhard, a 40-year Quartz Hill resident. “To me, it seems that these people just drag up this stuff to make problems for people.” All three of Lienhard’s grown children attended Quartz Hill High.

“We fought for that school,” the 61-year-old retired letter carrier said. “We fought hard and they called us rebels, and we were proud to wear the name.”

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