![The Citronaut appeared on the cover of UCF's (then FTU) first student handbook](https://www.ucf.edu/news/wp-content/blogs.dir/20/files/2017/07/cover-bmoc1.jpg)
Maybe you’ve heard about the history of the UCF mascot; maybe you’ve even heard about the Citronaut. Ever seen it?
Other choices would emerge–from a vulture to a scorpion and finally a knight–but it was the Citronaut that got the debate going: What would represent the university? According to UCF’s University Archives, the Orlando Evening Star (now the Orlando Sentinel) commented on the Citronaut on September 23, 1968: “its fate as a mascot will be determined ultimately by faculty and charter students…”
Students voted. And we all know the outcome of that election.