BY KEVIN PEARSON
STAFF WRITER [email protected]
The Hemet school board held off on taking the rare step of naming a facility for a still-employed teacher and instead will ask for community input before making a decision.
A group of Hemet High School theater students urged the board on Tuesday, May 15, to name the school’s new theater complex, whose construction is nearly complete, for longtime instructors Ron and Diana Murray. Diana is set to retire this year and Ron will return to Hemet High in the fall.
Instead, the board suggested a bronze plaque honoring the Murrays for their contributions and said that since the theater will be a community venue, the community needed to have a voice in its naming.
Board members opted to come to the June 19 meeting with two members of the community apiece — a total of 14 — to form a panel to determine the theater’s name. The move does not preclude the building from being named Murray Theater if that’s what the panel decides.
Board President Bill Sanborn had met with students about the topic earlier in the day and suggested the plaque, but a large contingent of students showed up at the meeting, with about a half-dozen voicing support for the Murrays.
The school board does not have a policy against naming facilities for people who are not deceased, but members sounded extremely hesitant to name it for someone who was still employed.
“If we took all the students who had meaningful teacher experiences, we would run out of buildings and have to build hundreds more to be named after them,” board member Joe Wojcik said. “I think it’s important that we involve the community in this process.”
“It’s only fair that with a community asset, we involve the community.”