Dode "Bearcat" Bercot strikes a logging pose in 1925
Monroe Historical Society photo #1449

Taken the year after the Monroe Union High School athletic team name was changed from the Panthers to the Bearcats in his honor. The local southpaw logger won over 100 main event bouts-42 by knockout-and took the Pacific Northwest Lightweight Championship in 1923. A boxing injury left in blind in one eye but he continued boxing for several more years before retiring in 1933 to become the first game protector on Whidbey Island, a position he held for 30 years.