Colonel Rebel, representing Mississippi as the quintessential caricature of an elderly southern gentleman, served as the on-field mascot for Ole Miss from 1938 until 2010, when a new on-field mascot, the Rebel Bear, was chosen through a lengthy process headed by students. A costumed Colonel Reb had been discontinued in 2002. The Colonel Reb likeness first appeared in the Ole Miss yearbook in 1938 as the yearbook’s leading illustration. The name Rebels was one of more than two hundred suggestions for the team nickname in a 1936 contest sponsored by the student newspaper. Submitted by Judge Ben Guider of Vicksburg, sportswriters chose the name from among those submitted to the contest. The selection of the Rebel Bear as the on-field and official mascot was not an entirely popular choice—many people supported continuing to use the Colonel Rebel figure, and others supported using the “Rebel land shark.”