As many freshmen walk through the front doors of AHS for the first time, it is hard to miss the enormous model of our school’s distictive mascot.

To them, choosing the atom as a mascot may seem strange, but for the upper classmen, it is hard to imagine it being anything else.

What they don’t realize is that there was a tremendous amount of contraversy and disagreement surrounding the mascot’s design, because of its history.

Greek philosopher Democritus was the first to recognize the “atomos” as the basic building block of all matter in 430 B.C. 130 years later, Aristotle proclaimed the existence of only four elements: earth, fire, water and air, sparking the interests of alchemists. It became their mission to discover the “The Elixir of Life,” a potion that would cure all illnesses and extend the lifetime of whomever drank it.

After the death of alchemy at the end of the seventeenth century, the atom took on a whole new meaning.John Dalton published his theory that matter is not only composed of atoms, but also that the atom is indivisible.

In 1897, J.J. Thompson created a new model of the atom, one that included a positively charged center mass with negative electrons on the surface.

Ernest Rutherford later theorized that the atom consisted of a dense positive center that was surrounded by negatively charged electrons moving at an infinitely fast speed, altering the model yet again. Despite later modifications to its design, Rutherford’s model serves as the school’s mascot.

By 1939, it was made public to the scientific community that several German physicists had discovered the key to splitting the uranium atom, a technology that had the potential to be adapted for military purposes. Upon learning of this, Albert Einstein wrote his now famous letter to President Roosevelt warning him of the research and the ramifications of a nuclear attack.

Just three years later, the U.S. began the top-secret development of its own nuclear bomb in what is now known as the Manhattan Project.

On August 6, 1945, the U.S. atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. After the Japanese refused to surrender, another was dropped on Nagasaki just three days later, killing a combined total of several hundred thousand people.

Fast forward nine years later, to when  AHS was built as one of few schools across the country to contain a built-in bomb shelter to address concerns of nuclear warfare. The school’s

mascot of the atom was chosen shortly afterwards as a tribute to the wartime efforts.

Approximately ten years later, parents brought a new design logo to then principal, Rodney Manuel. The new logo featured the infamous mushroom cloud of smoke inspired by the one shown across the nation along with horrific pictures of the aftermath and accounts of survivors. The design was rejected, as it was deemed disrespectful and irreverent towards the many victims and casualties of the bombings.

Today, our mascot remains unique to Annandale, serving as a constant reminder of our school’s history.