Respectful considerations

Naming buildings for people a big decision

Naming places in honor of people has a long history, encouraged for decades by the tendency of local and state officials to put the names of elected leaders who came up with funding on buildings, highways and the like.

It’s how Arkansas has the Fulbright Expressway or the John

Paul Hammerschmidt Federal Building or the Wilbur D. Mills Freeway. State agencies aren’t immune. It’s how Arkansans ended up with the Gov. Mike Huckabee Delta Rivers Nature Center and even one named in honor of his wife, the Janet Huckabee Arkansas River Valley Nature Center.

The practice gained some national attention during the latest Legislative session when Sen. Jason Rapert of Conway proposed a bill that would have required the renaming of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock. Rapert felt, according to his message on Twitter, that Arkansas “does not support them.”

It’s a natural tendency. There are people among us whose contributions to the state or local communities are so great they deserve some recognition of permanence (even though the recent removals of Civil War-related statues demonstrate no such honor is really permanent at all).

Benton County is getting into the debate over what’s appropriate when it comes to naming public facilities with a proposal to name the County Administration Building after a former county judge who was a driving force for getting the facility built. Bruce Rutherford served as county judge from 1989 to 1996. He’s perhaps even more appreciated by those who know him for his work as an investigator for the Benton County Prosecutor’s Office and his time in law enforcement at the Siloam Springs Police Department and the Benton County Sheriff’s Office.

Jeff Moser, a former justice of the peace, brought up naming the building after Rutherford, who died in April.

It is a natural thing to want to memorialize someone in the immediate wake of his death. Whether it’s someone famous or a civic leader or an aunt or uncle, it’s completely understandable to remember the good times, the achievements and the best characteristics of their personalities in the immediate aftermath of their passing. It’s an emotional time, driving a desire to do something that pays respect. That’s an honorable response. But Quorum Court members are right to consider hitting the pause button. The naming of public facilities should not be a quick and emotion-driven process. They’re not just responsible for a decision about memorializing Rutherford, but for ensuring there’s some rationale for the naming of public facilities overall.

And if a facility is to be named after someone, we’d recommend it not happen in the immediate aftermath of his or her passing. Families are often advised not to make any major life decisions in the first year after suffering a heartbreaking loss. Such advice seems appropriate for government bodies, too. If a person deserves to be honored through a dedication of a public structure, that can be discerned a year or two removed from his or her passing.

We appreciate the other creative possibilities for honoring Rutherford, such as the naming of a quarterly and annual employee award for him. Such a designation would keep his name in active use far more than the naming of a building that most people would continue to refer to as the Benton County Administration Building.

Our advice: Give it time. And think about the practice of naming buildings in honor of people removed from the specifics of any one individual.