Although the Fireside School has been named, not everyone involved in the process is happy with the result.
Mayor Ivan Brooker was included on a committee formed by the Rocky View School Division in April to put forward name suggestions for the new elementary school under construction in Fireside. The committee suggested the school be named after Lindsay Leigh Kimmett, a Cochrane resident and aspiring doctor who died in 2008. She was 26.
“The committee had different individuals from different communities – Fireside, Sunset Ridge, and so on. We had to come up with two names but we basically said that we were strongly putting forward our preference for Lindsay Kimmett School but they did make us come up with a second name,” Brooker said.
After the committee’s initial discussion, the school division asked the members to reconvene again a month later in May.
“When we were asked to reconvene, I was nervous about it because that’s not normally what happens is my understanding. They asked if we would reconsider a different name and put forward a different recommendation,” Brooker said.
Again the committee members discussed potential names for the school and decided to stick with their original suggestion.
“My comment to them was ‘You guys had asked us to sit together as a committee and put forward a name so we did that. Even though you’re coming back and asking us to reconsider the answer is no,’” Brooker explained.
Brooker said the school division never offered an official explanation as to why it didn’t want to select their preferred choice. He said it was his understanding that the division’s two local trustees were in favour of it but were outnumbered by three others within the constituency against it.
“We talked to Superintendent Don Hoium, and he was a teacher for years too, and he did say there was a lot they could do with the name Fireside. Most people will just think it’s in reference to the community but the notion of fireside, everybody sitting around a fire, a community gathering – he did think they could do a lot with the appropriateness of that name as well,” Brooker said.
Kelly Kimmett, Lindsay’s father, is disappointed with the outcome but said his family was honoured the committee considered Lindsay’s name.
“I don’t know who submitted the name or how they came up with the name, the committee just had us out for coffee and said that they were putting forward the name to the board. We were humbled by the decision,” Kimmett said.
Kimmett said he realizes that other Cochrane youth have died and didn’t mean for the name to single out one person specifically while ignoring the others.
“I don’t think they should single anyone out for dying to name a school, I think the school should be named based on how the person lived,” Kimmett explained.
“We felt that there’s a lot that Lindsay Kimmett did in her time here – she was the valedictorian of Cochrane High School, she was going on to become a doctor. And with all the work that’s gone on in the community in her name, it seemed appropriate,” Brooker explained.
Fireside School will open in September 2017.
