Colonel Reb - Origin

Origin

Noted Ole Miss historian David Sansing has stated that "Blind Jim may have been the model for Colonel Rebel." Sansing cites "the late Frank Everett" as the sole basis for this conclusion.

Ivy was very much a part of the Ole Miss scene in 1936 when the editor of the school newspaper proposed a contest to produce a new nickname for Ole Miss teams, then known as The Flood. "The Rebels" was the choice of 18 out of 21 sports writers. Rebels also won the contest sponsored by the Mississippian, with Ole Massas—a term used by slaves to refer to their masters—finishing a close second, and the university's sports teams have since been known as the Rebels. Two years later, Colonel Rebel appeared for the first time as an illustration in the university yearbook. This illustration was perhaps drawn by the art editor for the yearbook that year, Billy Hix. Hix often drew his depictions of the Colonel as a planter in an antebellum plantation setting. It is also possible that Colonel Rebel was originally created by the Rebel Club a student group founded in 1937 shortly after the University had adopted the "Rebels" name and was responsible for the publication of The Rebel magazine which featured an image of the Colonel on its masthead that is identical to the one appearing on the 1937 Ole Miss yearbook. Others may have also had a hand in revising and modifying the image of Colonel Rebel in those early years, such as campus bookstore owner Carl Coers and famous New Orleans cartoonist John Churchill Chase.