Former school gets new name as community center

HIGH SPRINGS – After receiving numerous renaming suggestions over a period of several months for the old High Springs Elementary School building in its new capacity as a community center, commissioners finally settled on The Historic High Springs Elementary School and Community Center.

The most recent debate, which occurred at the July 11 city commission meeting, centered on whether the building’s original use as a school needed to be maintained as part of the new name for historic reasons or would that be confusing to new people who were looking for a school for their children.

Then again, the school originally was a high school before it was an elementary school. Should the type of school it was originally or last used as be included? Would people confuse the community center with the Civic Center if it was just called the High Springs Community Center? Should the words “High Springs” be included in the name as everyone in town would know what town they were in? A suggestion to put up a plaque or marker to signify it was the historic location of the school was debated. The issue of whether the word, “historic” should be included in the name came up.

In an effort to settle the debate raging for the past 6-7 months, Mayor Sue Weller made a formal motion for the new name, which finally passed unanimously.

As part of Weller’s discussion, she said people could call it whatever they wanted. It was still going to be used as a community center and she believed most people would refer to it that way, no matter what the name.

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