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Cooperstown students vote to nix Redskins nickname

By Associated Press

Story Created: Feb 7, 2013 at 11:32 AM EDT

Story Updated: Feb 7, 2013 at 11:38 AM EDT

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. (AP) - The school in the upstate New York hometown of the author of "The Last of the Mohicans" is dropping its Redskins nickname.

The Daily Star of Oneonta reports that middle and high school students in Cooperstown voted earlier this week to replace the nickname that goes back to the 1920s.

The top vote-getters for a new nickname include Deerslayers, Hawkeyes and Pathfinders, the names of characters in some of the frontier novels written in the 19th century by James Fenimore Cooper, who was raised in the upstate village founded by his father.

The board's president says they will ultimately decide on the new nickname.

The name change proposal was brought to the board and school administrators by students who said they found the Redskins nickname offensive to American Indians.

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