Who Knew?

by Eileen Gilligan

Q. Has there ever been a female badger mascot for UW–Madison?

A. From time to time, efforts have been made to create a female version of Bucky Badger or a female friend for Bucky. But no female badger mascot apparently has survived the test of time.

Before the birth of Bucky in his current form, the 1941 “Badger” yearbook featured two loving badgers, boyfriend and girlfriend Benny and Beulah. But they were not attempts at a mascot, according to Gwen Schultz, professor emeritus of geology, who wrote the authoritative book, “The Bucky Badger Story.” Rather, “Numerous drawings of them, fitting various campus activities, humorously added life to that issue of the yearbook,” she wrote.

“There was some talk about finding a partner for him and the name Becky was tossed around with others, Betty, and something equally alliterative,” says Art Hove, a historian of UW–Madison. “But it never really went beyond the experimental stage.”

The School of Nursing featured a Bucky-type badger topped with a nurse’s cap as a logo on its internal newsletter in the early 1960s, according to one historian there.

A 1980 photo from UW–Madison Archives shows a smiling, waving, bow-topped Becky Badger. But Hove and Schultz say she was a short-lived, one-time kind of badger mascot.

If readers have any information on the whereabouts of a female badger mascot, please write or call Who Knew?