Name that school
By Elizabeth Coe
The naming committee for Loudoun County's latest high school -- set to open in Leesburg in fall 2009 – has come up with three suggestions for names:
1. Tuscarora High School, after the Tuscarora American Indian tribe, which lived in the region and had early encounters with Europeans in Virginia.
2. Old George Town High School, after the original name for Leesburg, originally named for King George II.
3. (alternate) Leesburg High School
The first two suggestions, the result of a tie vote, and the alternate name have been presented to members of the School Board, which is scheduled to vote Sept. 9 on the final name.
Once a school has been funded and its opening day is in sight, a committee of parents, teachers, students and other residents is appointed to come up with a new name.
Sometimes the names are obvious, named for the location of the school, such as Loudoun County High School or Middleburg Elementary. Others are named for people, landmarks or historical references.
Sometimes the committee's suggestions for names are rejected by the School Board. In 1998, the board vetoed the committee's choice to name an Ashburn high school (now Stone Bridge) after Margaret Mercer, an 19th-century Loudoun resident who freed her family's slaves.
Six years later, Mercer Middle School opened in Aldie, named for the opponent of slavery.
Here are the stories behind some of Loudoun's schools' names:
Algonkian Elementary
This school in Sterling is named for the largest group of linguistically related American Indian tribes in North America. They lived from coastal North Carolina to Canada and were the first people to meet the English at Roanoke in 1584 and at Jamestown in 1607.
Ball's Bluff Elementary
Off Battlefield Parkway in Leesburg, this school is named for the Battle of Ball's Bluff, also known as the Battle of Leesburg, which occurred Oct. 21, 1861, during the Civil War.
On the night of the battle, Union forces decided to cross the Potomac River from Maryland to Virginia to capture Leesburg, but they were unaware of the 100-foot cliff called Ball’s Bluff that awaited them on the other side. As forces reached the Virginia bank, a Confederate attack drove much of the Union Army over the bluff and into the river. Many of the soldiers drowned.
Emerick Elementary
This school opened in Purcellville in 1967 and is named for Oscar L. Emerick, who was superintendent of Loudoun County Public Schools from 1917 to 1957. Oscar Emerick and his wife, Carrie, were long-time residents of Purcellville. Their home is still there on the corner of Orchard Avenue and Main Street.
Farmwell Station Elementary
This school in Ashburn carries the name of a former railroad stop nearby.
Frances Hazel Reid Elementary
In Leesburg, this elementary school is named for the woman known to generations of Loudouners as "Miss Fannie Reid."
She is known for her more than 70 years of service to the Loudoun Times-Mirror from June, 1921, when she accepted a secretarial position, until her death in 1994, when she was still active as associate publisher.
Harmony Intermediate School
In Hamilton, the school is named for the former name of the town of Hamilton.
John W. Tolbert Jr. Elementary
The name for this school in Leesburg was inspired by an education-conscious former member of the town council.
Newton-Lee Elementary School
In Ashburn, this school was named for Christopher C. Newton and Dong Lee, two Loudoun residents on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. Freedom High School and Liberty Elementary in South Riding are also post-Sept. 11 names.
Rosa Lee Carter Elementary
This school in Ashburn is named for the dedicated African American educator. She was born in Bluemont and began her teaching career in Loudoun in 1927. While teaching, she noticed differences between black and white schools in the county. She created a library in her classroom and worked to find ways to educate children even without ample funds. She worked in the county school system until her death in 1999.
Steuart W. Weller Elementary
Opening this fall in Ashburn, the school is named for a business owner and longtime county resident known unofficially as the mayor of Ashburn.
Weller, who died in February of pancreatic cancer, moved to a farm in Ashburn almost 50 years ago.
He and his wife, Gracie, had five children in Loudoun schools and opened Weller Tile & Mosaics in Ashburn. Weller was also a volunteer firefighter who sponsored youth sports teams and volunteered with the Boy and Girl Scouts.
Contact the reporter at ecoe@timespapers.com