In a two-paragraph letter sent Feb. 17, the Avon Maitland District School Board appears to have put to rest the possibility of having the entire St. Marys DCVI high school renamed in honour of former Prime Minister Arthur Meighen.
“We agree that Arthur Meighen’s legacy should be honoured,” states the letter, signed by Avon Maitland education director Chuck Reid and addressed to St. Marys mayor Jamie Hahn. However, “in our communication with the school community, there has been on-going support to maintain the legacy of the secondary school.”
As support for maintaining the high school’s present name, the letter cites this summer’s upcoming 2010 St. Marys Homecoming.
“Former students will be expecting to return home and honour the history of the school they attended – St. Marys District Collegiate Vocational Institute (and formerly St. Marys Collegiate),” Reid’s letter states.
The current Arthur Meighen Public School will be closed – along with St. Marys Central Public School – when the town’s Kindergarten-to-Grade 6 students relocate next September to the new, currently-under-construction Little Falls Elementary School.
Grades 7-8 students will be accommodated in a renovated portion of St. Marys DCVI, and the board’s original plan for maintaining Meighen’s legacy was to rename that portion of the high school after the former prime minister.
Hahn has been spearheading a campaign to have the entire secondary school facility renamed. A Dec. 17 letter to the school board made that request official.
Barring future appeals, however, Reid’s response suggests that’s not likely to happen.