Maybe some Xmarks folks can hook the kids up with some less pricey kilts?

From the Dallas Morning News, 25 August 2005:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/parkcities/stories/DN-kilts_26met.ART.West.Edition2.1de4e5e0.html
Tradition is wearing thin for bagpipers' kilts
Highland Park: Theft, deterioration take toll on high school custom



By KRISTEN HOLLAND / The Dallas Morning News

Dirges are sounding for the blue-and-gold plaid kilts of the Highland Park Highlander Band.

"I have been deeply saddened to not see them as much as we used to," said Cindy Kerr, a 1971 Highland Park grad. "Highland Park is the Scots, and the kilt is part of that. I think it would be like A&M not having the Corps, like Texas not having the Longhorn, Arkansas not having the Sooie pig."

Former head piper Jody Magers, a 1968 graduate, said the crowds roared when she and her fellow pipers stepped onto the field at Highlander Stadium in full uniform.

"The traditions of it are what I think were so overwhelming," she said.

"It was wearing the uniform. It was that we were the only school with bagpipes. It was that we were truly Scots."

What's happened in recent years with the decline of the kilts "makes me sick. I don't understand it," Ms. Magers said.

Relatively little is known about why or when a Highland Park football coach changed the school's mascot from the Coyotes to the Scots. But the history of the school's kilts is well documented in yearbooks and newspaper archives as far back as the late 1930s. The Scottish wool plaid uniform didn't really gain a foothold, however, until the Highlander Lassies marched onto the scene in the 1950s.

According to a September 1959 article in The Dallas Morning News , "The Highlander Lassies are fast becoming a trademark of Highland Park and a symbol of Scot spirit. Fourteen Hi Park girls, dressed in Scottish kilts and playing bagpipes and drums, will be seen during the halftime activities of each Scot football game this season."

The name "Lassies" was dropped in the late '80s – when males began participating – in favor of the more gender-neutral nickname "Pipers."

Today, many of the original bright red plaid kilts are lost or damaged. Those that remain are tucked away in an upstairs storage unit at the high school. The same is true of the current blue-and-gold plaid uniforms first purchased in the late 1950s for about $600 each.

"The kilts that I wore, that my friends and classmates and the ones before us [wore] ... they're almost gone," Ms. Magers said. "They said that people came by and stole them. There are even bagpipes that are just gone."

Highland Park senior and head piper Paula Arzac outfits some of her pipers with what's left of the decades-old uniforms. Others opt to purchase their own, but the expense is prohibitive to many.

"It costs about $1,000 to fit" someone in the kilts, Highland Park band director Michael Cruz said, adding that only the band can purchase the uniform because the tartan – a plaid textile pattern to designate a distinctive Scottish clan – is registered.

He said that the students who don the uniform "are very honored." They're true school ambassadors, Mr. Cruz said.

In the past three years, Paula has represented the Scots at a variety of functions, including community parades, competitions and even a wake. "They always want you to play 'Amazing Grace,' " she said.

The bagpipers have numbered in the dozens over the years, but Paula hasn't marched with more than a handful during her career. Currently, including Paula, there are four pipers in the award-winning band.

"The thing about bagpipers is that you always get a lot of people, but only a few of them stay," the 16-year-old said. "Right now, we've got three pipers [in training] who hopefully will be on pipes" within a year.

Mrs. Kerr said the lack of interest in the age-old tradition is disheartening.

"Everybody has always been proud that we were the Scots and we wore the kilts," she said. "The kilt is equally as important to me as the bagpipe part. I don't want to see the tradition go away."

E-mail kholland@dallasnews.com