Milligan College
NEWS RELEASE
Contact: Public Relations Office, (423) 461-8719
P.O. Box 9, Milligan College, TN 37682
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Meet the mascot - Stuffed Milligan buffalo has colorful past

By Sam Watson
Johnson City Press Education Writer
swatson@johnsoncitypress.com

The stuffed buffalo now resides in Lacy Fieldhouse at Milligan College. (Lee Talbert / Johnson City Press)

MILLIGAN COLLEGE — Until Ray Smith tried to load a stuffed buffalo into a rental truck, the Milligan College athletic director had no idea how large such a creature really was.

“You never really appreciate the size of these things until you see them up close,” Smith said Wednesday in describing the college’s newly donated mascot. “There’s some substance to this thing. It’s not just a stuffed animal that you cuddle up with.”

Mounted on a stone base 9 feet long, the 1,000-pound behemoth is anchored on a ledge above the entrance to Milligan’s Steve Lacy Fieldhouse, providing inspiration for the college’s athletic teams, which have been known as the Buffaloes for generations. Milligan introduced the new symbol at the Buffaloes’ first home basketball game of the spring term on Jan. 13.

Smith expected the 7-foot-1-inch-tall mascot to create quite a stir among Milligan fans and opposing teams.

“To say the least, it’s going to be a conversation piece,” he said. “It’s very, very lifelike.”

The buffalo came to Milligan with quite a history — from roaming the plains to appearing in an Oscar-winning film to being a down payment for a truck to going on display in a Virginia antique mall.

Originally from an American Indian reservation in the plains of South Dakota, the buffalo either appeared in or had association with such films as “Dances with Wolves” and “Quigley Down Under” before it was killed in 1990.

According to Milligan, its meat was given to a local tribe in keeping with laws and customs, and more than 400 hours of taxidermy went into restoring the buffalo for display. Shelor Chevrolet Corporation’s Memory Lane Antique Mall in Christiansburg, Va., wound up with the buffalo after its taxidermist-owner traded it as a down payment on a truck.

Early in December, Smith arrived in his office to find a message on his voice mail from former Elizabethton resident Tom Gentry, whose daughter, Missy Rotenberry, works for Shelor.

The mall was amid relocation, Smith said, and owners had no plans of taking the $15,000 buffalo along. Shelor had offered the buffalo to Marshall University’s Thundering Herd, but Marshall already had one of its own. So, when Gentry remembered Milligan’s mascot, he called Smith.

Chartered in 1866 as Buffalo Male and Female Institute and renamed Milligan 15 years later, the college sits adjacent to Buffalo Creek and in sight of Buffalo Mountain, hence the nickname, the Buffaloes.

After gaining approval from Milligan President Don Jeanes and other officials, Smith searched for a truck with a door tall enough to accommodate the buffalo and made the trip to Christiansburg on New Year’s Eve with his wife and daughter. With the assistance of several hands and the truck’s hydraulic lift, the donated buffalo was on its way to Milligan.

“It was quite an adventure to load this thing,” Smith said.

So was placing it in the Lacy Fieldhouse. Smith said Milligan did not have a lift strong enough to hoist the half-ton mascot to its concrete ledge, so he had to rent one. Once it was up there, a crew anchored the buffalo in place, making it even harder for any would-be pranksters to remove.

Milligan has yet to name the new mascot, but Smith foresaw a naming contest for students.

VIEW JOHNSON CITY PRESS ARTICLE

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MILLIGAN COLLEGE is a nationally recognized Christian liberal arts college in Northeast, Tenn., whose vision is to change lives and shape culture through a commitment to servant leadership. The college offers more than two-dozen academic programs, including three master's degrees. To learn more about Milligan College, visit www.milligan.edu or call 800-447-5922.

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