Smithville is just a little curve on the map. Southern Indiana is made more beautiful by Lake Monroe and you just have to drive south through Smithville  to get there. Small town life was wonderful, growing up in the country, but access to Indiana University, just fifteen minutes away, gave us a wide variety of educational opportunities.

When I started school in the mid-sixties, kindergarten wasn’t required for another couple of years. We were still blessed to be able to stay at the same school until graduation. You had one teacher for each grade up through the fifth grade. We still recited the pledge of allegiance every morning before school began and I also remember in the first and second grades my teachers even prayed with us before class! My, how times have changed.

A school’s greatest pride was their mascot. It stood for strength, stability, endurance, sportsmanship, loyalty, and yes, even MANHOOD. Schools had big and strong mascots like lions, and tigers and bears, oh my! I couldn’t resist. Menacing animals on the prowl such as cougars, panthers, and wolves, along with the bulldogs, rams and even the soaring eagles, were stately mascots that any school would be proud to have.

Present at most sporting events, his job was to get the crowd excited before the team came out and the game began. Then he would usually stay with the cheerleaders and entertain the spectators in the bleachers throughout the game. And at halftime? Well, he was ready to go!

Smithville was no exception when it came to school pride. Now whether all of the other mascots were taken at the turn of the century I do not know. I like to think our school overflowed with originality. Surely they knew their mascot would be the brunt of jokes, would be laughed at, poked fun at, and forever the stigma would follow them when the big double doors would open and out would waddle…….. a SKIBO, “What in the world is a SKIBO?!”

To Smithville School a Skibo was a Penguin, the cutest black and white, tuxedo-clad little guy that would become the center of pride and joy for the community for decades.  The only other reference to the word Skibo that can even be found anywhere on the internet is to the Skibo Castle in Scotland! Two meanings for the name are mentioned, one which in turn comes from an Old Norse name meaning firewood steading and the other derives from the word schytherbolle, which is Gaelic for fairyland.

I highly doubt the Smithville Skibo got its name from the Scottish Castle so I guess we will forever speculate about its origin. The Smithville Historic Society has a wonderful collection of memorabilia and even one of the local historians, Rosemary Wisely, acknowledged there is no record of the decision-making process for the name of the famed mascot. And if memory serves me correct, the Skibo was even affectionately named, “Sammy”, he just becomes more fearless all the time…

Now before you think I am making light of my beloved alma mater, let me set the record straight in more ways than one. Smithville played some mean basketball! They have a room full of trophies in Historic Redman Hall as living proof that time and time again that Skibo shuffled his way out on the gymnasium floor, worked that crowd into a fevered frenzy and then those boys played Indiana basketball! Hoosiers love their basketball and the Skibo’s lived up to the title. We were Skibo-proud!

It didn’t matter to the Smithville team what their mascot looked like, they had team spirit. And team spirit took precedence over looks. When they were unified they could do anything and they proved it every time they got on that court.  I was still in the sixth grade when the powers-that-be re-districted and decided some of the smaller outlying schools were going to have to close down their middle and high schools and send them into the city. I can remember going to the last few games, those players were bigger than life to me, literally and figuratively. And all too soon a way of life was about to become a thing of the past.

Even though the Skibo was different, it didn’t matter to the kids at Smithville. They were willing to endure the humiliation, the guffaws, the laughs and the hee-haws to prove that they were just as good as the next guy. You may think I am grasping at straws today but really I’m not. I wasn’t having a slow day either. I was having a nostalgic day. I’m intrigued by the underdog and those that associate with such heroes.

I was reminded of another such champion this weekend…

He wasn’t popular, He wasn’t fierce, He certainly wasn’t a superhero to the Sanhedrin, the Romans and those that were determined to see Him nailed to a tree. He didn’t come into this world as a King, He came as a baby. He didn’t make His triumphant entry as a conquering general but as a lowly servant on a young colt.

To call it a Triumphant Entry to a Roman would have been a slap in the face! Only a Roman general would have been worthy of that honor having won a complete victory and killed at least 5,000 enemy soldiers.  When the general returned to Rome from battle he would be honored with an elaborate parade. There were treasures captured from the enemy and then the prisoners were marched in front of the crowd. His soldiers marched by and then the general himself rode in a golden chariot pulled by magnificent horses. Even some prisoners were thrown to wild animals as entertainment for the crowd. This was considered a Triumphant Entry, not Jesus sitting on a pony.

He was a true Champion. And yet He was not seeking fame. He didn’t have to. He was the Savior of the world. Yet He suffered, He grieved, He was tormented! All of the humiliation and insults He endured were  for you and me. “Who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself  to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness— by whose stripes you were healed.” 1 Peter 2:23-24.

Forever we will be indebted to the One who paid the price and gave His life so we wouldn’t have to. The stone was rolled away. But Easter didn’t end over the weekend; it just began with the empty tomb! He arose, He sent the Comforter, the infilling of the Holy Spirit, Christ in you the Hope of Glory! This is the promise that He is coming back to get us and our assurance that we can rise to meet Him again.

If you’re ever in Southern Indiana and are curious to see a Skibo, holler for Rosemary, she can take you to Smithville!