School board will fix naming policy

The Sisters School Board Monday night began the task of improving its 27-year-old policy for naming facilities — new schools, parts of schools or ancillary facilities such as playing fields.

The board’s policy committee, Glen Lasken and Mike Gould, will draft a proposal and bring it back to their colleagues as soon as possible.

The need for this arose unexpectedly when the board recently voted to name the high school football field for former board member Bill Reed and his wife, Jan, who were killed in a July private plane crash, and simultaneously to name the school auditorium for the late Lloyd Brogan, former owner of the Lazy Z ranch. Brogan’s daughter and her husband made a $10,000 contribution in his name in 1993 to help pay for light standards at the football field.

Unbeknownst to the current board, a promise evidently was made to name the field for Brogan. But family members graciously agreed to let it named for the Reeds instead and to have Brogan’s name placed on the auditorium, given the family’s interest in school performing arts.

According to Board Chairman Jeff Smith, the community has strongly supported the first action but has questioned the second, some critics suggesting that many others deserve consideration if the auditorium is to be named. So the board effectively has put the auditorium issue on hold (see “Board to revisit naming of auditorium,” page 21, Sept. 21).

At Monday’s special board meeting, Smith said the current naming policy takes care of instances “where we have a facility in need of a name” but does not offer much guidance for cases in which the district wants to memorialize someone who has provided exceptional service or perhaps given money.

Gould said the district might need two policies, one for each of those two types of circumstances.

Lasken said it would be dangerous to start naming things for people who give money because of possibly creating the appearance of putting school facilities “up for sale” or giving offense to those who have also made contributions but are not being honored.

Lasken also noted the irony of this issue having arisen in he wake of what started out simply as an attempt to name something in honor of the Reeds, both of whom were strongly associated with the schools over many years. Laksen and Reed became friends during mutual years of service on the school board and Lasken recalled with a chuckle that “the most adamant opponent of naming (school facilities) for anyone was Bill.”