EDITORIAL – Let’s go back to naming schools after people instead of places

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

KAMLOOPS WILL GET a new school a couple of years from now and School District 73 officials are inviting the public to propose names for it.

The $65-million school will be built in Pineview Valley, so Pineview Valley elementary would be the obvious choice but that would be boring. Mind you, it would be in keeping with a lot of other geographically named schools in the district — Summit, Westmount, Aberdeen, Dufferin, Heffley Creek, Pinantan Lake are a few examples.

Ho hum. Helpful in figuring out where the schools are, I suppose, but not very interesting. Surely we can do better.

Other suggestions from the district include “local, provincial and national diversities” (have fun with that one), indigenous history and names that “reflect a positive image of the board.”

Hmm. Well at least they provide more room for creativity than does geography. One criterion that’s surprising is this one: “name of a person” who has been dead for at least five years.

It’s been a long time since a new school here was named after a person but it was once common practice. We have schools with names like RL Clemitson, Arthur Hatton, Kay Bingham, Marion Schilling, AE Perry and so on.

Naming anything after people can be dicey these days — a lot of buildings, parks and locations have had their original titles removed in the name of zealous modern-day political correctness when something is found out about the person we no longer agree with.

But before our local schools started being named after geography, people names prevailed, and most — not all — of those are named in honour of folks who distinguished themselves in the service of education in the district.

What’s wrong with that? No controversy there.

These days, we only name edifices of any kind after people who donate a lot of money towards the construction. Instead, why not memorialize a deserving educator and honour some history; let’s give the Pineview school a nice people name.

I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.

Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.