River Bats swoop in and win spot as ACC’s official mascot

Austin Community College is now home to the River Bats. After several months of gathering suggestions, research, focus group input and community voting, the Mascot Search Committee revealed the winner at 12 p.m. April 28 on every ACC campus.

At all seven campuses, Highland Business Center and the ACC Service Center, students and staff gathered around a big screen with free pizza in hand to watch the video of the Pink Bunny unveiling the winner.

ACC President and CEO Steve Kinslow removed his Pink Bunny mask as he announced our new mascot by holding up the sign with the words "River Bats" written across it. Some of the crowd at the Rio Grande Campus cheered as their mascot choice won while others groaned as their's lost.

"Seeing a guy in a pink bunny suit holding up ‘River Bats,' my life's complete now. I've seen it all," said ACC student Travis Turk.

It was down to the four finalists, Starblazers, Blazers, River Bats, and Bbhoggawacts, during the voting process in late March. River Bats won by a large margin with a total of 1,554 votes. Bbhoggawacts and Starblazers closely battled it out for second place, but Bbhoggawacts won the position with its 1,162 votes.

Bbhoggawacts, which was created to represent all eight ACC service counties, was pushed to the "Keep Austin Weird" crowd to win with efforts including the creation of Facebook groups. It was because of these efforts that the committee decided to incorporate Bbhoggawacts as a part of the mascot name.

"There was such a concerted effort behind Bbhoogawacts that it was heartwarming," said Brette Lea, Executive Director of Public Information and College Marketing. "So we thought that it would be kind of neat to have a visual representation in the River Bat that depicts Austin certainty, and Round Rock and the other counties that we serve but then to have a name that seals the deal and it sounds good together. Bbhoggwact the River Bat. So in the end we had the top two choices in there,"

However, now that the mascot has been chosen, there is still work that needs to be done. Now that there is a name, Bbhoggawact the River Bat now needs a face to go with it's name. The next step for the Mascot Search Committee will include involving the community in the design of the mascot.

"The process next is to engage the community and to engage our student body and to start working on what this River Bat the Bbhoggawact is gonna look like. so that's the next stage. We're gonna engage over the summer and we hope to have the reveal for the design in the fall." said Mascot Search Committee Chair Avy Gonzalez.