As a student at St. Mary's Central High School, I was upset by your Sept. 26 story on the St. Mary's homecoming T-shirts.

I understand how the drawing offended Native Americans, but the Tribune failed to mention that the sharks depicted are our mascot. The shirt wasn't meant to offend anyone. The Native American in the drawing is Mandan's mascot, a Brave.

If the St. Mary's administration had known how offended people would be, the design wouldn't have been used. Another thing to clarify is that the reason everyone was wearing the homecoming shirts on Thursday is that Thursday was homecoming shirt-and-jeans day. We didn't know about the controversy concerning the shirts until that morning.

We didn't mean to upset or offend so many people.

(The writer is a sophomore at St. Mary's - Editor)