Name the New High School

[mommygator]

Welcome Gatordog!! Hmmmm, do I smell a Gombert parent?

[gatordog]

Gombert Gators can be sniffed out in lots of places!

Concerning Shabbona....a web search shows some promising things. He was worthy of having Shabbona State Park named in honor.

A quick summary of what I have learned so far: He was known as a just man, helpful to settlers, sought out for advice on illnesses and injuries. Lived 1775-1859. (This I understand makes him a contemporary of Waubonsie and Nequa, in this area at same time). Perhaps most notably, tried to dissuade Indians from starting the Black Hawk War in 1832. When his council was ignored, he went on a Paul Revere like ride of 100 mi warning settlers along the way (including Dupage River) to seek shelter in nearby forts.

He was a famous warrior in his youth. Became chief at age 19, unusually young. Perhaps a negative is that he fought with Tecumsah, allied with British during War of 1812. However, his participationed ceased when Tecumsah killed, and he allied with Americans. He helped guide American troops west.

I want to go away and do more homework on this Chief!

By the way, a comment on Matewa: from what I have seen, he was a chief in what is now Indiana. Even though he was in the what is known as the Illinois tribe, I wonder how much local connection he had?

[proschool]

The Indian tradition is to instill someone with a power by giving one his or her name. If you wanted your child to have the power of mystique and strength you might call your child Bear. If you wanted to instill your child with cleverness and stealth you might name your child Fox.

Hey. I thinks thats it. Fox Valley High School!

Seriously, I never got the impression that Chief Waubonsee had a High School named after him just because it sounded cool. Are we sure that we are not really paying a disrespect to his accomplishments by saying that the tradition was just to use an Indian name? Maybe there was more to it than that.

I am glad that you are looking into the accomplishments of your nominees but I can't help but noticing that the accomplishments seem to be an afterthought to the fact that they were Pottawatomie chiefs with cool sounding names.

When I was a kid in Chicago Richard J. Daley was the mayor. He was person of enormous influence and power locally and nationally. After he died reporter asked his widow what his biggest tribute was and in all sincerity she said it was the school that was named after him (Daley Junior College). Her answer surprised me because Chicago is a world class city and to me it seemed like he had influenced every square inch of it. When I thought about it I realized that she was right.

There really is no bigger tribute than you can pay to one person than naming a school after him or her, especially when it is going to be an outstanding high school that is going to affect so many students as they develop into adults.

I wish that we would approach this in the Indian tradition of using the name of the school to instill it with the strengths that we would like to see in its students.

[gatormom]

I like your thought process Proschool, but question Fox Valley High School mainly because that is the name of the park district over here. That might lead to confusion. I have the same feeling about Shabbona High School. Because Shabbona is the name of a town in Illinois, there might be confusion as to where our high school is located. Are you from Shabbona's Indian Creek HS or 204's Shabbona Valley HS.

[title1parent]

My husband suggested Sasquatch Valley.....Home of the Big Hairy One !!! Can you see the mascot ?

[proschool]

Gatormom emailed an outstanding suggestion to me.

Waukesha (wauk-tsha) Valley High School.

Waukesha is the Potawatamie word for Fox, so it is really referring to the geography and history of the Fox Valley.

[gatordog]

I agree that Shabbona Valley as a name could cause confusion, since there is a town by that name relatively nearby. However, these spellings of Indian name with no written language are pretty arbitrary.

I have seen other spellings of the chief's name by historians, Shabonee. Also I have seen the more French-based spelling, Shobonier. Furthermore, from the website of the Prairie Band Potawatami Nation, direct decendants of the tribal branch from our area now in Kansas, they spell his name Shab-eh-nay. I would take that spelling as Shabehnay. I like that in that it takes the pronunciation problems away.

Let me type it to see how it looks...Shabehnay Valley High School? Or alternatively, Shabonee Valley High School? I like the first one.

Do any lifelong Illinoisians know how the good citizens of Shabbona pronounce their town's name? Is it Anglicized to Sha-BONE-ah?

[EagleDad]

Yeah, Ronald Reagan is starting to stick with me.

Why are we bending over backwards to name the school after Native Americans, who quite frankly had little or no actual impact on the world. I mean, if we have to look this hard to look them up, should we name our future after them?

[ilove204]

I don't think it would ever happen... but who knows with how things go around here.

(Already used in TX and NC)

[Schooldaze]

ED, your comments about Native Americans sound culturally insensitive. Did it occur to you that the arrogance of the people who felt entitled to steal the native's land might have something to do with why you have to search so hard for contributions of a people who occupied the land for centuries before they were slaughtered?

[proschool]

i dont see where ed is insensitive at all. if there is a native american that you admire and you think that it is befitting to name a school after him then name the school and that person is a namesake. if you never cared enough to learn about a person until you wanted to use thier indian name for a school then that person becomes your mascot.

Cheif wabonsee was a appropraite namesake for a school because he was a respected leader of the potawatamie for decades and he fought on behalf of the united states. he was a awarded of the presidentail metal of freedom by andrew jackson. he signed treaties on behalf of the potawatamie. he led his people across the mississippi after they were displaced by white settlement.

it belittles his accomplishments when you just start looking for another indian name in the history books.

[EagleDad]

Sorry, if I implied anything against Chief Waubonsee, or Native Americans in general, I did not mean too.

What I did mean to say is that people seem to be digging really, really deep to scrape up names of remaining potawatamie tribe members, purely for that sake, not due to their contibutions.

I think proschool summed it up perfectly...

"it belittles his accomplishments when you just start looking for another indian name in the history books."

My point exactly.

[Schooldaze]

ED, It takes a big bird to say you're sorry.

The point is our history books don't exactly tell history from an unbiased perspective. Groups who've made significant contributions to this country are often left out of the history books. That's the insensitivity. The history of this country that has been published and the actual history are sometimes two different stories. If there is an interest in continuing to honor the people whose homes, lives and dignity were stolen, it might take deep digging. Just as there seems to be a question of the value of the effort, there has been little value given to their contributions. Remember, there were humans here long before there were settlers.

For the record, I like the simplicity of Fox Valley High, however, when I am on the road with my athletic children and people ask about our school name, I am proud to tell the story of the Chief and his son.

[proschool]

I think everyone can see some common ground here.

For the record my first choice is still Ronald Reagan High School.

[gatordog]

I feel very strongly that the new HS name should follow the naming tradition of the other high schools. First and foremost, i want the name to promote district wide unity. I think the name should bring emphasis to the fact that all our high schools are equal and the entire community is supporting it. This was my starting point.

Already we have geographic "barriers" to overcome when it comes to promoting unity. We are separated by Aurora, Naperville and Bolingbrook. Dupage and Will. None of us have the ability to alter these facts.

Long ago, this community made a decision, driven by geography, to call itself "Indian Prarie School District". Long ago, we decide to bestow our two HS with names honoring local Indian Chiefs. In a symbolic way, if we go against this tradition, I think it leads peoples thoughts down the road that this new school is "different". My experiences of the last year or so tells me, even if its is "only symbolic", this is a not a path we should take.

Through lots of efforts, starting with our kids themselves, the names of Waubonsie Valley and Nequa Valley have built up a lot of pride and recognition. I think chosing a parallel name of (Indian Chief) Valley will be a big part of helping the new school off to a start that continues this record of excellence set by WV and NV.


Lets look ahead. Years from now, as new people move in, will they understand that all three schools are in fact part of the same school district? Its crystal clear in the neighboring towns, where high schools are named Naperville (Direction), Oswego (Direction), and Plainfield (Direction). These districts took the simple naming solution. I cannot argue with that. But given our multiple city and county, we had to be more imaginative. I think a wise and worthy naming tradition was established.

BOTTOM LINE: The general public will be confused if we deviate from the naming tradition. People may NEVER realize that three HS are in the same school district. Outside the district, maybe this is a only a "public relations problem". Inside the district, I think the damage would be deeper. Here is one possibility: could voters be confused if asked to support a referendum that is mostly driven by needs at (New) HS, and not see the link since they live in the WV or NV area? Is that a risk worth taking?

Ultimately, this name selection is about keeping our district now and in the future unified. All of us are deeply involved in our school district, and we know the obvious: all three schools are in the same school district. For the general public, both within and without the district, we cannot assume they too will "know the obvious". We should not promote such confusion with deliberately misleading names.

With that said, I have been working to find a name that meets what is in my mind the first priority. For those who suggest a name that is contrary to my "starting point", are you willing to accept these consequences?