ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 10, 1997 TAG: 9704100046
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM THE ROANOKE TIMES
William Clark Middle School was named after one-half of the Lewis and Clark team. Clark married a woman from Fincastle.
It's been six months since Botetourt's County-wide League started asking the Botetourt County School Board to return the name of their beloved alma mater - and some small piece of their cultural history.
What is now William Clark Middle School in Fincastle used to be Central Academy, the last black school in the county before integration.
Tonight, the league's members hope they will get some degree of satisfaction. After months of wrangling, addresses to the board, and meetings by a committee to explore the matter, the School Board has promised to take action on it.
"We want to put this behind us," Chairwoman Sally Eads said, but offered no hint of what the resolution might be.
The School Board has been faced by the County-wide League at every meeting since the decades-dead educational watchdog group reformed in October.
Most of its members are graduates or parents of graduates of Central Academy. They began meeting out of anger over the name given to their old school last year when it was converted from Botetourt Intermediate School to William Clark.
The new name, they said, was "a slap in their face." Clark, one half of the famous Lewis and Clark exploring duo, has only a tenuous connection to Botetourt County, they said. He married a Fincastle woman after he returned from exploring the West. He never lived in Fincastle for more than a few weeks.
To league members, it seemed the board went out of its way to find an important white man to name the school after. The name was chosen from the results of a contest advertised in the local newspaper.
Now, after all the discussion and the possibility of the change being made, the league is softening its stance.
"I really think it was an oversight," said Verlina Hinton, spokeswoman for the league. "And it's surprising, considering how interested Botetourt is in its history."
She said the matter is not one of race, "it's about our history, and we just happen to be black."
Nevertheless, Hinton and others have been frustrated by what they perceived as inaction by the School Board.
The board appointed a committee to study the request. It included two board members, some teachers and members of the league.
But Hinton said the ideas they came up with - like naming the adjoining athletic field for Hinton's great-great uncle, Alexander D. Fairfax, who donated the land for Central Academy, or putting up a commemorative plaque - all fell short of what the league wants.
Of late, though, Hinton said the board has been more responsive to the group.
"They've really opened up and started to talk to us," she said.
Just getting the board to take action on the name is a victory, she said.
Yet they'll settle for nothing short of changing the name.
"You can keep your mascot and your school colors," Hinton said. "We just want our name back."
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