When it came time to open three new elementary schools in the city, Concord chose a trailblazing teacher, a pair of historic local businessmen and a nearby stream as their namesakes.
With construction set to break ground this spring for the district’s new middle school, the city is asking the public to suggest names to replace “Rundlett” atop the building.
Through Feb. 20, members of the community can submit suggestions via a form on the district’s website. Superintendent Tim Herbert will then narrow down the contenders and present a selection to the school board, which will choose the final name.
Concord has chosen new names in the past, as it did with the elementary schools, and decided to retain old ones, as it did when the current Rundlett was built in 1957.
Historically, the district has named many of its primary schools after people who left their mark on Concord or its education system. Rundlett Middle School, for instance, honors Louis Rundlett, who served as superintendent for five decades and oversaw multiple waves of new school construction and growth in the city. Under his leadership, Concord was one of the first school districts in the country to implement a “junior high school.”
Mill Brook and Broken Ground, named after the surrounding landscape in East Concord, are exceptions to the trend, as is Beaver Meadow.
Some names have been reused or transferred over, living on with the schools as institutions rather than the buildings themselves.
The Harriet P. Dame School, now the location of the City Wide Community Center, honored a heroic local Civil War nurse with its name, which carried over when the original wooden schoolhouse was torn down to build a larger, brick one just before World War II.
Once dubbed “the most trusted man in Concord,” John Kimball was a city mayor and president of the New Hampshire Senate in the late 1800s.
Both of the two schools that bore his name are no longer standing: The first Kimball School, which stood at the location of Kimball Park next to the Boys and Girls Club, was torn down in 1957. The elementary school between Rumford Street and South Spring Street that was torn down to build the Christa McAuliffe School then inherited the name.
What was later known as Kimball previously housed the city’s high school and was simply referred to as “The High School.” When the current Concord High School building was constructed, the old high school became the city’s junior high and was named after the superintendent at the time, Rundlett. Then, when the district built a new junior high school on South Street – the same location of today’s middle school – the Rundlett name carried over and the Kimball School got its new name.
Other elementary school namesakes include Rev. Harry Dewey, a pastor at South Congregational Church who served on the school board for nine years, Charles Conant, who was a district music teacher for 37 years, and Ebenezer Eastman, a founding father in the city’s history, among others.
If you have ideas about what the new middle school should be named, share them with the Monitor at news@cmonitor.com and with the school board through the district’s survey.