BATON ROUGE - Alumni of Istrouma High revealed a restored mascot of the former school Wednesday night.

The Nawaganti statue was originally donated by the class of 1964. But, it's been subject of years of neglect and was left behind when the school closed.

Alumni retrieved it, had it restored and showed it off at the Goodwood Library.

"We felt like we needed to do whatever we could to save the history of the school as much as we possibly could before it was thrown away," Wayne Messina said. Messina was part of the class of 1964.

Istrouma had been taken over by the state then closed. Now, the East Baton Rouge Parish School System is working to regain control of the school and reopen it by next school year.

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