For years, each Bulldog touchdown was met with the cheering of the crowd and the resounding boom of a cannon. Now, the touchdowns are met only with cheering, no thundering explosions echoing throughout the city.

The cannon, which was fired after every Montesano touchdown at Jack Rottle Field, was put out of commission this season.

When the cannon first became a tradition, nobody’s quite sure. Some residents believe the cannon was first introduced in 1941 or 1942, however a cursory glance over The Vidette archives during those years show no mention of the cannon. Montesano School District Superindtendent Dan Winter said discussions with alumni has placed the introduction of the cannon at some point in the 1980s.

Though it might not be as far back as the ’40s, Winter recognizes the tenure of the tradition.

“The ’80s — that’s still pushing 40 years ago,” Winter said.

Whenever it was introduced, it’s become a tradition, and this is the first season without it.

Another point of varying perspectives is why the school district decided to discontinue the cannon celebration. Some residents believed it had to do only with complaints — most accounts said the complaints came from a veteran with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But that’s not exactly accurate, Winter said.

The football booster club has been responsible for firing the cannon, Winter explained — the booster club finds the person to operate the cannon and purchases the shells for firing.

In conversations with the school district’s insurance company, the cannon was identified as a liability. The insurance company advised the school district to not use the cannon and they referenced a lawsuit in Snohomish in 2006. A student was firing a cannon at football games when something went wrong and the cannon exploded, severely injuring the student. The Snohomish School District reached a $660,000 settlement in 2009.

Despite the liability, the Montesano School District continued the celebration for the past couple years with the understanding that the booster club was firing the cannon. The assumption was that only adults were in charge of the cannon.

Last season, Winter said students were allowed to fire the cannon and that’s when the district decided to put the brakes on the celebration.

“At that point, the liability had come too high and we made the decision we wouldn’t use the cannon for this season,” Winter said. “It seemed sudden, but the decision had been made 10 months ago with thought given to it a couple years prior.”

That said, Winter noted that he had received a couple of complaints about the cannon in the past — one from a visiting team’s fan, a veteran who was having issues because of the cannon (in that case, the cannon was suspended for the rest of the game to accommodate that individual). There was not an excessive amount of complaints, but there were a few, and not all were from veterans, Winter said.

Liability and anxiety issues are concerning, but a group of residents are disappointed the tradition is gone.

Matt Klinger is spearheading an effort to get the cannon back for football games.

“Besides getting married and having kids, the best years of my life are on that field. My fondest memories growing up are playing football with my buddies. Watching my son down there playing football takes me back and makes me feel like I’m 16 again. I wear more Montesano shirts every week than I do any other shirt combined,” Klinger said. “I haven’t heard anybody say anything that they don’t like the cannon.”

There’s a shared history to the cannon, Klinger said.

“To me, when we were kids, like in grade school, we didn’t go to all the games but we could hear the cannon going off and we knew that the bulldogs were winning,” he said. “I’ve heard some people saying they hear the cannon going off and they try to guess the score of the game. It’s the one thing every team has in common — the cannon has been there.”

Klinger sent a letter to Winter in the past couple of weeks making the case for the cannon celebration to be restored at the games. Klinger also posted the letter to social media where it received a positive response from community members.

“I posted the letter and in four hours that thing was shared 400 times and I’ve received over 300 emails of people supporting it,” Klinger said. “It blew me away.”

Since the letter was posted, Klinger and his supporters have met with Winter and other school district officials. Both Klinger and Winter have characterized the meeting and conversations about the cannon as positive.

Both Winter and Klinger believe a compromise will be reached that will bring the cannon back in some way or another. Details of what a compromise might look like were not yet clear, but it seems likely that touchdowns soon will be accented with an explosion, as has been the case since at least the 1980s.