Gettysburg council candidate trademarks her high school’s logo, asks for money

The “Warrior way,” according to the Gettysburg Area School District, is about kindness and commitment.

Kierstan Demps, a Gettysburg resident who is running for a borough council seat, said she wanted to redefine “what it means to be a warrior,” however, and one of her steps was to trademark the school district’s logo and ask the district to pay licensing fees.

According to Pennsylvania’s Department of State, Demps, 31, obtained the trademark for “Gettysburg Warriors,” along with its logo — a “G” inside an arrowhead — last month under the name Kierstan’s Kids, LLC. Demps, according to the Department of State, also operates a nonprofit called #live4love.

Online, locals have been baffled by Demps’ actions, with many changing their social media profiles to the district’s logo in protest.

“This was a very poor decision,” one commenter wrote on the “Gettysburg Crimes“ Facebook page.

Demps, who graduated from Gettysburg High School in 2010, told The Inquirer early Friday morning that she had no comment on the situation but would “address Warrior Nation in due time.” In an interview with the Gettysburg Times, which broke the story earlier this week, Demps said she received a “cease and desist” letter from the district but doubled down on her stance that the logo now belongs to her.

“I am a warrior. There is no misappropriation,” Demps told the newspaper. “I want to make sure the district gets royalties from athletic apparel and printed materials with the logo. All that money should come back to the community to these warrior children and families. That is exactly what I am trying to do.”

The Gettysburg logo is on high school and youth football helmets and athletic apparel. In her filing, Demps said the logo has been in use since August 2013. Rebecca Leathery, a school district spokeswoman, said that logo was created by a district employee over a decade ago. According to the Gettysburg Times, it was changed in an effort to move away from Native American imagery.

“The logo has been in use since that time, and the district intends to continue such use,” Leathery wrote in an email to The Inquirer.

Mark Janis, director of the Center for Intellectual Property Research at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law, said there’s little screening done on the state level for trademark registrations. If Demps had tried to register the trademark, federally, it would have been rejected due to Gettysburg’s prior use, he said. ”The school district seems clearly to have been the first to use, and seems to have continued its use, so they would have superior rights in the logo,” Janis said in an email to The Inquirer.

Earlier this week, the Gettysburg Crimes Facebook page posted screenshots of emails Demps sent to the school district, asking for a meeting to discuss the “terms and conditions of our licensing fee.” Gettysburg school board president Kenneth Hassinger told The Inquirer the board’s solicitor did send Demps a letter in response to those requests.

“Our stance is we believe that neither she nor anyone else has rights to this intellectual property,” Hassinger told The Inquirer. “We strongly disagree that any monetary value be earned off that logo. Any monetary gain from it would be coming from the taxpayers.”

Demps, chair of the Adams County Advisory Council to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2021. She initially told the Gettysburg Times she would like to use the fees to build a “community center” but in a subsequent news story said the fees would “supplement the student assistance program,” using her business as a “conduit.”

Demps, who also goes by Kierstan Belle, deactivated her Facebook page. She told the Gettysburg Times she regretted how the news of her trademark was released to the public.

Gettysburg council president Wesley Heyser told The Inquirer the issue was between Demps and the school district and declined to comment.