2 civil rights icons to beloved Pasco teacher. What will Pasco name its new high school?
From Arthur Fletcher and Cesar Chavez to the beloved Pasco health care worker Martha Galvez, more than 300 names were suggested for two new Pasco schools already under construction.
In all, some 600 Pasco community members sent in their favorite choices.
Two naming committees will now meet over the next month to recommend up to five suggestions that will be forwarded to the Pasco School Board.
The board will review the finalists at its Oct. 10 meeting and then pick the names for the two schools at an Oct. 24 meeting.
The district hopes to have the details wrapped up by Nov. 1 to incorporate the names into the design of the schools.
Mascots and school colors will be picked later. The district also has started the process of redrawing its boundaries to incorporate the new schools.
Voters earlier this year approved a 21-year, $195.5 million bond measure to build a third comprehensive high school at 6091 Burns Road and a 600-student technical high school in east Pasco.
District policy says the names must be meaningful to residents.
Chiawana High School, for example, which opened in 2009, was named for the Native American word for “big river” or “father of water,” referring to the Columbia River.
Names of living people will be avoided and cannot conflict with the names of other schools in the district or surrounding districts, says the policy.
Several surveyed community members suggested names based around the region’s unique geographical features. Those included:
Desert Sky or Desert Vista High School
Sage or Sageview High School
West Pasco High School
Palouse High School
Great Forks High School
Snake River High School
Juniper Dunes High School
Basin or Columbia Basin High School
Dust Devils High School
A full list of the names can be read on the district’s website at psd1.org.
Patricia Sullivan Roach
One name stood out as a favorite among hundreds of suggestions.
About 20 proposed naming the new high school after Patricia Sullivan Roach, a 12-year Mark Twain Elementary librarian who died in 2012.
She is well-known for her tireless work in the Tri-City community, as well as her involvement with Lourdes Medical Center, the Pasco Library board, the Franklin County Historical Society and Museum, and St. Patrick’s Parish.
She was one of the first babies to born at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in 1921 and graduated from Pasco High School in 1939.
Roach also served as the first “Miss Pasco” in 1941, according to survey responses. She was inducted into Pasco High School’s Hall of Fame in 2004.
Arthur Fletcher
Arthur Fletcher — known as the “Father of Affirmative Action” — was the first Black person elected to the Pasco City Council and stood as a national figure in the march for civil rights.
He was an adviser to several Republican presidents and was the first Black candidate to run for statewide office.
Fletcher served in the U.S. Army starting in 1943 until he was injured while fighting in Europe in World War II. He went on to get involved in government contracting and organizing the Black vote.
In 1964, he moved out to Eastern Washington to work at the Hanford nuclear site. After serving the city of Pasco and a failed run for Washington lieutenant governor, Fletcher went on to serve as Nixon’s assistant secretary of labor and later as executive director of the United Negro College Fund.
Martha A. Galvez
Martha Galvez was a beloved Pasco health care worker who served thousands during her 27-year career as a nurse.
She grew up the fourth in a household of nine siblings. At age 10, her parents uprooted their lives in Guadalajara, Mexico, to move to Pasco and give their kids a better life.
She graduated from Pasco High School in 1989 and from Columbia Basin College’s nursing school in 1994, according to the Washington State Nurses Association.
During her tenure as a birth center nurse at Kadlec Regional Medical Center, Galvez brought more than 3,000 lives into the world. She said her job was more of a calling than a career.
Sacajawea
The famous Shoshone translator with the Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery.
The expedition camped two nights in October 1805 with other Native Americans at the site of modern-day Pasco at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers.
Sacajawea Historical State Park now commemorates the historic site.
James Pruitt
James Pruitt was a longtime Tri-City resident, youth counselor and civil rights leader who was the first Black employee to work for the city of Pasco. He worked in the police and community relations department.
He arrived in the Tri-Cities from Mississippi in 1948, moving here to work at the Hanford nuclear site. He described his new home as “very, very prejudiced” and very racist.
He became a leading Black voice for the east Pasco community during its days of heavy racial segregation.
Gladys Sutton Coleman
The first Black female student to attend and graduate Pasco High School in the 1920s, Gladys Sutton Coleman was a beloved trailblazer in the Pasco community.
She served as a missionary and as well as an accomplished pianist. She also worked for the president of Whitman College in Walla Walla at one point.
She is widely known for her devotion to the service of others.
Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez was the well-known California civil rights leader, community organizer, environmentalist and farm labor activist. He founded the organization that would later go on to become the United Farm Workers labor union.
He was a 1994 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Shortly after graduating from the eighth grade, Chavez was forced to work the fields to help his family following an accident involving his father. He went on to serve in the U.S. Navy.
He went on to get involved in union organizing, advocating for better pay and safer working conditions, and fighting for the recognized dignity of all farm workers. He succeeded through non-violent boycotts, pickets, fasts and strikes.
Jeffrey Dong
A 40-year Pasco educator known for turning his students into history buffs, Jeffrey Dong touched the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of students.
He also served as a Pasco School Board member.
Dong originally grew up in Seattle, where he received his teaching degree at the University of Washington. He moved to Pasco in 1967 for his first teaching job at Pasco High School and made the area his home.
He was awarded the Crystal Apple Award in 2002 for his dedication to teaching. He died in 2013.
