Bill Williams is reporting for Columbia-Greene Media Rip Van Winkle, Columbia-Greene Community College's emblem and mascot is defending its SUNY Mascot Madness title this month, C-GCC director of public relations Jaclyn Stevenson said. Rip was the first community college mascot to win the top spot in the SUNY Mascot Madness 2019 competition, defeating Walter T. Wildcat of SUNY Polytechnic Institute. The competition was on hiatus in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now in its eighth year, 32 colleges are participating in the five rounds of bracket-style competition. Round 1 is taking place until Fri., Mar. 19. Round 2 through 4 run from March 22 to April 2. The finals will run from April 5 to 7, Stevenson said. Voting is being held online at SUNY [dot] .edu [slash] mascotmadness. Rip Van Winkle leads the school’s athletic teams, the Twins, and serves as a symbol of Columbia and Greene counties, as well as the Catskill Mountain range. “Most recently, our best mascots have been Sean Berry, class of 2020, and Montgomery Burdick, class of 2019. They both had a lot of involvement in our championship,” Stevenson said. Read the full story at HudsonValley360 [dot] com.