The committee charged naming Wasatch County new high school still under construction took their flirtation with name ideas public last week when they pitched their early ideas to the school board.
Their ideas, however, are still only ideas for now.
“We are not naming the high school tonight,” district Superintendent Paul Sweat said. “This is going to be our first blush at a name with the accompanying mascot and colors for consideration.”
Before showing his hand and directly divulging the name, mascot and colors the naming committee had cooked up, Kelly started hinting at what they had thought of by delving into the history of Deer Creek State Park.
“Deer Creek State Park is the No. 1 day-use state park in the state of Utah,” he said. “Everybody knows where Deer Creek is.”
The reservoir, he added, serves 1.5 million people — almost half the state’s population — their water.
“We thought that’s kind of interesting,” he said.
Ultimately, the name the committee pitched was, you guessed it: “Deer Creek High School.”
“Our legacy is built on our Values. They have been constant and will remain long after we have all moved on,” Kelly read on a logo beneath the proposed name. “Deer Creek Reservoir was starting construction in like 1936. It was completed in 1955, and they started using water out of it in 1942.”
Heber Valley Railroad, he said in reference to another theme that has been considered in the design of the new high school, may come and go. He said it could disappear if tourists stop riding the train.
“You’re never going to be able to get rid of Deer Creek Reservoir,” he said. “I think that’s where our legacy is going to be built with Deer Creek High School.”
He added that every stream in the valley leads into Deer Creek, just like students from different parts of the valley will pool into the new high school.
“We’re there to help mold them,” he said. “But once that water shoots out the other side through the power plant, metaphorically we want our students to go power the world.”
He also mentioned how sticking with a mountain or lake theme would give the district ample branding opportunities to name the various components of the school. If a mountain theme is chosen, the commons could be the base camp, the gym known as the cave, the hallways called passes. If the board prefers a lake feel, the school’s spillway could be the marina, the athletic facility could be the island, the main office the power plant.
“This is not set in stone, but here’s where our mind was,” he said.
The colors they pitched were silver-mine silver — a call back to Midway’s mining past — and lake blue for more obvious reasons concerning the reservoir.
The mascot would be the Mountaineers, representative of the people who found and explored the Heber Valley, second only to its native populations.
“Let’s face it, you lived in Salt Lake or Provo back in the 1800s, it was a pretty desolate place,” Kelly said. “But you come up here, it’s green meadows, pastures. I think they thought they’d died and gone to heaven coming to this place.”
The naming committee hasn’t yet decided what they want the mascot to look like. Kelly said he felt high school names carry their legacy better than their mascots.
Board members only had good things to say about what Kelly showed them, but that doesn’t mean his ideas will all be realized. The public and board now have time to ruminate on the proposal, which could be edited or even redone before an official name is chosen.
“I think we’re all realizing that naming a high school is a process,” Holmes said.