A name can't help but bring its history

New elementary and middle schools in Manatee County are usually named after people.

And that's not easy.

The names are chosen from lists of nominees suggested by friends, admirers or relatives. Usually, most of the nominees are deceased. Others are retired after long careers.

Many had served the public as teachers, school system superintendents or elected officials. But this time, one nominee is a 9-year-old boy killed by a stray bullet in a gang-related shooting last year, while he was on his bike.

School Board members, when first assigned to Manatee's school naming committees, might sometimes expect easy duty compared with tackling more substantive education issues. It's not so, says Jane Pfeilsticker, a first-term School Board member serving on her second naming committee.

"People can be very emotional" about school names, and about nominees, she said. And sometimes with good reason.

A new school known so far as Elementary E has 33 possible names. They were submitted by 118 people. All but one are going to be rejected. The names not chosen might include the area's first black postal carrier, Alvin Desear Little. And Christopher Cobb, a graduate of Bradenton's Bayshore High who became a Marine and was killed in Iraq at age 19.

And then there is Stacy Williams, the boy whose death by a stray bullet last year is anything but old news in the neighborhood where he died. Just days ago, a jury in Bradenton found a local teenager guilty of murder in Stacy's death. The Sheriff's Office went to extraordinary lengths to provide security at that trial, because of worries about witness intimidation or violence by gang members or others. The convicted killer hasn't even been sentenced.

And yet Monday, the three members of the school naming committee are supposed to study the 33 nominated names and use a required rating procedure to choose five names each. They are then to decide on one, and recommend it to the School Board.

I asked Pfeilsticker how she felt about the suggestion to name the school after Stacy.

Honoring the boy in some similar way is certainly a worthy idea, and he and his family deserve it, Pfeilsticker said.

"I'm sure it will be a major topic of discussion," she told me.

But she has real qualms.

"I'm not entirely comfortable with the elementary school" as the choice for a memorial, she said.

Like me, she wonders what effect it could have on the school's children, now and years from now, as they learn the story behind their school's name.

Maybe that story could help them learn to avoid gangs and violence.

But some kids already have a lot of fears, and their school should feel safe. Naming it for a murdered child just might be a too-constant reminder of grim tragedy and fatal and senseless violence that can strike without warning.

It's a tough issue to hash out. It's not like talking about a long-dead president. Stacy was a child. Grief is fresh and related news is still unfolding.

"It's touchy," Pfeilsticker told me. "It's hard to talk about publicly."

With few exceptions, new public schools in adjacent Sarasota County are named for their town, neighborhood, street or some other geographic connection. Maybe that's a really good idea.{CUTLINES}

Tom Lyons can be contacted at tom.lyons@heraldtribune.com or (941) 361-4964.