Besides only ONE person showing up to the School Board meeting to protest the new HS being named after Jefferson (because he was a slave owner) there was a presentation by Dr. Boysen on how the names were chosen.
She talked about the super secret naming committee which consisted of 14 members (only 4 were named, apparently the other ten must be a part of the witness protection program).
She proudly stated that two-thirds surveyed suggested Slavery HSÂ but when it came to the suggestion of Ben Reifel she said ‘Someone’ suggested the name. So as I suspected, it was suggested by ONE person, and we have NO idea who it was. No surprise, typical of elitist school administrators who know better than us. So basically the middle school was named after the School District administrators with NO suggestions from the actual public.
One or a hundred. Reifel is a fantasic name.
I could come up with a Dozen or more great names. But since the public wasn’t invited to make suggestions, the elitists at the SFSD made their own decision.
“Okay, I think I’ve solved our problem. There use to be a congressman from this state, his name was Remington or Rifle, or something like that….But here is the good part, he was a Republican and an Indian at that, so that solves the McGovern thing and kind of the slavery thing with Jefferson as well, don’t you think?…”
The name selection process was terrible. Unfortunately very few seem to care about all the closed meetings the city/county/state have on a daily basis.
A school named Rifle the same week there’s no more concealed carry and within 10 days of a major gun show in Sioux Falls. We need more funeral and tombstone businesses. Rename Rushmore ‘Boot Hill’?
The name selection process is most likely predictive of how transparent the school district will be about how they spend our 190m+ TAX DOLLARS.