The selection of a name for the Little Rock School District's newest kindergarten-through-eighth grade school is on the agenda for a special School Board meeting at 5:30 p.m. tonight.
Options being presented to the board include retaining the John L. McClellan name held by the high school that is being replaced by the new building at 9417 Geyer Springs Road.
Other options include naming the school for aviator Milton Pitts Crenshaw or Dr. Marian G. Lacey, a Little Rock district educator.
District leaders have in recent weeks asked for suggestions on the school name, its mascot and school colors.
"Based on the survey results, it was clear that the community wanted the school colors and mascot to remain the same" as the mascot and colors used by the high school, a staff memorandum to the board states. "Therefore, we are recommending that the school colors remain Red, White, and Blue with the school mascot remaining the Crimson Lions."
"For the school's naming, two names surfaced from the initial survey: John Little McClellan and Milton Pitts Crenshaw," the memo continued. "The district administration recommended an additional name for consideration, Dr. Marion Glover Lacey."
The district this week has conducted a survey of the public on those three names.
McClellan, a native of Grant County, represented the state in the U.S. Senate from 1942 until his death in 1977. He was considered one of the most powerful members of the Senate, serving as chairman for 18 years of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that conducted inquiries into corruption in the labor-management field, organized crime, military contracts and the city and college campus riots of the late 1960s.
His more than 1,000 bills included those that resulted in improved government operations, savings to taxpayers, and stronger law enforcement, as well as improvements for Arkansas in terms of water navigation, flood control and natural habitat preservation, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas also described McClellan as a consistent opponent of civil rights legislation.
Crenshaw, a native of Little Rock who died in 2015, was one of the original Tuskegee Airmen, making him one of the first Black Americans in the country -- and the first from Arkansas -- to be trained in the early 1940s by the federal government as a licensed civilian pilot. That led to his earning a commercial pilot certificate and to his work training pilots at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and at military posts elsewhere in the nation.
"Crenshaw's combined service record extends for over forty years of federal service from 1941 to 1983 with the U.S. Army (in the Army Air Corps) and eventually the U.S. Air Force," according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, which also cited Crenshaw for starting the first successful flight program at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, from 1947 to 1953.
Lacey worked for 30 years in the Little Rock district after spending the first 10 years of her career teaching English in the Arkansas Delta communities of Helena, Eudora and Clarendon.
She began in Little Rock as an English teacher at then-Dunbar Junior High School. She was an assistant principal at Central High School and principal at Dunbar. In 1988, she was named principal and served 10 years at then-Horace Mann Arts and Science Magnet Junior High School.
Lacey eventually was named assistant superintendent of secondary schools and served in that capacity for seven years, until her retirement. The Little Rock School District instituted the Marian G. Lacey Educator of the Year Award upon her retirement, according to biographical information prepared by the district.
The School Board meeting is open to the public and is broadcast on multiple platforms for online or television viewing. More information on viewing options is available on the district's website: lrsd.org.