The Huskies defeated the Lions and the Phoenix.

Meanwhile, black, silver and teal fended off challengers black and silver from one direction and red and yellow from another as future Patterson Mill Middle and High School students chose their favored mascot and colors through a vote in October.

On Monday night, the Harford County Board of Education approved the choice and made it official.

“Huskies will become a very popular thing in the Bel Air area,” Principal Wayne Thibeault predicted. “People were already coming up to me and asking where they could buy school stuff.”

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Since the beginning of the school year, Thibeault has been touring Patterson Mill’s feeder schools and seeking future students’ ideas for mascots and school colors.

Any mascots already used by schools in Patterson Mill’s athletic league were eliminated from consideration. Suggestions were also screened for political correctness, though Thibeault said none of the mascots submitted risked being offensive in an age when Redskins, Indians and Bullets can raise controversy.

“The kids took this very seriously,” he said.

From Oct. 6 through 23, the 1,175 students-to-be cast their vote for one of 11 different team names.

Choices ranged from the ubiquitous Cardinals, Pioneers and Bears to the more unusual Bucks, Knights and Lancers and the geographically unlikely Piranhas and Gators.

Thibeault even found himself contacting the publishers of Webster’s Dictionary to find out if “Phoenix”— the third-place finisher behind Huskies and Lions — had a plural form.

“It’s just ‘Phoenix,’ ” he said. “There are no Phoenixes or Phoenixeez.”

Now that the mascot and school colors have been chosen, school officials can start work on school letterheads, graduation gowns, athletic uniforms and band uniforms before the school’s scheduled opening in August 2007.

Following a presentation by students from each of the schools sending students to Patterson Mill and a ceremonial opening of a sealed envelope, Thibeault and others adjourned from the school board meeting for cake, decorated with the new mascot and colors.

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com