Help name school to be built next year in Lake Country

A name-the-school competition took a comical turn last year, but Central Okanagan board of education trustees are enlisting the process once again.

Members of the public are invited to put forward names for a new middle school in Lake Country. Construction will begin next spring.

“It’s important we ask the community to help name this school,” board chairwoman Moyra Baxter said Tuesday in a release.

“The name will reflect the area and its residents, which will increase the community’s sense of ownership and identification with the school,” Baxter said.

Names can be suggested until Sept. 28 on the School District 23 website.

Last year, the public was invited to help name a new middle school in Kelowna’s Upper Mission neighbourhood.

Almost 1,000 submissions were received, and the most commonly suggested name was Schooly McSchoolface.

The pranksters’ favoured choice was reminiscent of an ill-fated public competition to name a polar research ship in Britain in 2016. Although Boaty McBoatface was the runaway winner, the U.K. government instead named the ship after Sir Richard Attenborough.

During last year’s name-the-school contest, only two people suggested Canyon Falls Middle School, but that was the name chosen by trustees at a meeting last September.

“I liked it right from the beginning,” trustee Deb Butler said of the name at that meeting. “I just think it paints a great picture of the area.”

The Lake Country middle school is currently known simply as Lake Country Middle School in planning documents.