By Morf Morford

Tacoma Daily Index

Whether you opposed or supported the changes of the names of two of Tacoma’s most prominent schools, the reality is that for the upcoming school year, Woodrow Wilson High School and Jason Lee Middle School will have different names – names that presumably resonate better with their identity and place in Tacoma’s history.

I must admit that school names have always been a mystery to me.

What did any given president or historical or local figure do to warrant a school being named after them?

Did they visit or even live during a time when the school was formed?

Did the school have a shrine or monument in tribute to an ideal that person stood for or represented?

Did the president or public figure attend that school as a child?

(Should we have a Frank Herbert, Gary Larson (Far Side cartoonist) or Dale Chihuly High School?)

Is naming a school after you an honor? An obligation? A joke?

Many eons ago I attended Perry G. Keithley Junior High.

Who was Perry G. Keithley and what did he do to deserve the, ahem, honor of having a junior high named after him?

I’m assuming that the brutish attitude of teachers and students that I experienced (including literal corporal punishment for not having a shirt tucked in) is long gone.

But Pink Floyd could have used my junior high experience for their mind and soul numbing portrayals in The Wall.

And poor Perry G. Keithley must have felt in some indistinct way, the cursings of his name as early teenagers made their way through the claustrophobic hallways and continually humiliating and bullying gauntlet of the junior high years.

That was, of course, many years ago.

I am certain that such things are not allowed currently.

It wasn’t only students who were impacted; I had one English teacher who recorded (on a massive tape recorder on his desk) his morning “lectures” and replayed them through the rest of the day.

The smoke-filled teacher’s lounge was off-limits for students.

In short, back in those grim days, school (at least my experience of it) was not meant to be a “positive” experience. It was meant to be endured.

Conforming and being subservient seemed to be the over-arching message of every day, class and arbitrarily (and usually cruelly) enforced rule.

School, to put it mildly, is a very different place now.

Individual needs, aptitudes and trajectories are (largely) acknowledged and respected.

Local schools themselves are, more and more, taking on names that reflect their regions, values and histories.

I’ve often wondered, for example, what President Franklin Pierce must have done to have a county, a college and a high school named after him.

He was never in this area and was associated with minimal, if any, laws, rules or proclamations that impacted any of us.

Naming schools after distant political figures (or even questionable historical figures, like Jason Lee) is a remnant from a distant past.

After all, how many “presidential” named streets, schools and parks do we need?

Doesn’t it seem that every city has a neighborhood of streets named after presidents?

But when it comes to schools in Tacoma, at least currently, other than Lincoln High School, our high schools reflect our history, our region or the emphasis of each individual school.

Henry Foss High School, for example is named after civic leader and tugboat tycoon Henry Foss. (My one quibble with Foss High School is that it should have been named after Thea Foss – the founder of the company that still bears her name).

And how many Mount Tahoma High Schools are there across the country?

What other city has a school with a name like SOTA? (School Of The Arts) or SAMI (Science And Math Institute)?

And what other city has a school with programs or a name like IDEA (School of Industrial Design, Engineering and Art)?

Stadium High School shares its name with the larger neighborhood – as does Oakland Alternative High School.

As of the school year beginning in September of 2021, two new names will be featured on the landscape of Tacoma Public Schools.

What had been known as Jason Lee, will now be known as Hilltop Heritage Middle School and the school formerly known as Wilson High School will be named in honor of a local figure: Dolores Silas.

Who was Dolores Silas?

She was first Black woman to serve as an administrator for Tacoma Public Schools after becoming principal of DeLong Elementary. She also became the first Black woman to serve on Tacoma City Council in 1991.

She also served as the President of the Tacoma NAACP, first elected in 1978, and was recognized by the city of Tacoma with a Lifetime Service Award in 2019.

She passed away just a few weeks after being recognized in a public event commemorating the new name of the school.

She may be gone, but her name and legacy carry on.