Thousands sign petition to save school’s name
A Langley student’s online petition to preserve the name of her high school has earned more than 16,000 signatures.
Halle Bottrell is a student at R.E. Mountain Secondary School, named after beloved educator Roy Edward Mountain, who was raised in Langley and taught or administrated in the community for more than 40 years. He died in 1975.
“If we were to take away our high school’s name, it would take away all the memories that have been made by past students and the legacy they have left,” Bottrell wrote in the introduction to her petition. “As REMSS is such a well-known school for the impact we have made in our community it would be a great loss if the name was changed.”
She never thought the petition would get so much attention.
Among the petition’s signatories are students, their parents and graduates, who cited nostalgia and the school’s history as reasons to keep it named R.E. Mountain.
Construction is underway on a new secondary school in fast-growing Willoughby, right next to R.E. Mountain. The new school will be finished by fall 2019, at which time the 40-year-old secondary school will become a middle school.
Langley School District officials seemed baffled by the petition because the district has not decided on a name for the new school.
Superintendent Gord Stewart said anyone can suggest a name, and it may well be that R.E. Mountain is chosen. If that’s the case, a similar naming process will be undertaken for the middle school. If a different name is chosen for the new secondary school, the middle school will be named R.E. Mountain.
District spokesman Ken Hoff stressed it is not the district’s intention to eliminate the name.
“There is no decision on dropping the R.E. Mountain name — that’s not been a consideration,” Hoff said. “The only question is whether the new name applies to the middle school or secondary school.”
Sylvia Mountain, who married Roy Mountain’s now-deceased youngest son, said Roy Mountain was a well-known figure in the community. Having the high school named after him was significant for Mountain’s family, she said. Because most of his teaching and administrating was done at the high-school level, she thinks it would be most appropriate to have his name on the high school.
The school district began accepting submissions for a name for the new school last week.
The deadline for submissions is Oct. 30, and it’s expected the school board will consider the submissions and choose a name by its December meeting.