By BARBARA GREEN
editor@bowienewsonline.com
The appearance of several Bowie students dressed in fruit costumes at the Jackrabbit basketball game on Jan. 7 at City View sparked a firestorm this week as people at the game reportedly complained they were offended at the racist stereotypes the costumes perpetuated.
According to Bowie school officials, there were three boys wearing banana costumes and two wearing pickle costumes. Superintendent Blake Enlow said students have been wearing these types of silly costumes for several years and there is generally “no purpose whatsoever” other than doing it for attention.
“Sometimes there are two or three kids and other times six or seven wearing them. About a week ago at the Henrietta game, there were two wearing the pickles. Friday night they were at the top of the bleachers, they had a sign and were rooting on our kids. As the team fell behind they sat down,” said Enlow.
According to the complaint voiced by City View Superintendent Tony Bushong at first, he thought they were doing some sort of fruit dress-up day although he said he has not seen anything like this in his four years in the district. Bushong told KFDX TV as the game went on he saw the students and thought they were wearing watermelon costumes which did not seem appropriate along with the banana costumes.

Read the full story in the weekend Bowie News.