BonnerSprings.com

The Bonner Springs-Edwardsville Board of Education on Monday night recognized a longtime civil-rights and community crusader.

The board agreed to the request, presented by Jerry Jarrett and Bonner SClausie Smith, to rename the district's Head Start building, at 441 N. Neconi, for Louisa Fletcher.

Though Smith is mayor of Bonner Springs and Jarrett is a City Council member, Smith said, "This is not a city proposal."

The request was Jarrett's idea, Smith said, "to honor Louisa Fletcher's many, many years of contributions" to Bonner Springs and Edwardsville.

The board approved the request unanimously, despite an informal policy that no building would be named after an individual, after complaints arose from the naming of the middle school after Robert. E. Clark in the early 1990s.

Clark was the principal of Pioneer Junior High for about 20 years, had recently died, and the school was changing its grade structure to become a middle school. A name change was deemed necessary because of the acronym that would have been formed if "Pioneer" was kept in conjunction with "middle school."

Of Fletcher, Jarrett said at Monday's school board meeting, "we're talking about a tremendous person living today. I don't want to give her roses (only) when she's dead."

"We'd decided not to name schools after people anymore," said board member Cliff Brents. "I say we make an exception to the rule."

Informed of the decision on Tuesday, Fletcher, 89, said, "I think it's grand that people think that much of me to name something after me."

In fact, Fletcher had attended classes in the same building, when it was an all-black primary school called Lincoln School.

Fletcher went on to graduate at the top of her class from Bonner Springs High School, and became active in the NAACP, participating in a 1956 lawsuit to integrate elementary schools in Bonner Springs. She served six years as Youth Council advisor to the NAACP Chapter, chaired the organization's Committee for Education and served six years as state secretary of the organization.

In 1974 she was elected the first woman president of the Kansas NAACP and was re-elected eight times. In 1977, Fletcher was elected to the NAACP National Board of Directors, and also elected as one of six national vice presidents of the organization.

Last year, Fletcher was awarded by the Kansas NAACP the 2007 Chester I. Lewis Distinguished Service Award for her work in civil rights.

Until her retirement in 1976, Fletcher worked in several agencies for the federal government, including 21 years at the Department of Health and Human Services, and time also working for the Navy, the Treasury Department and the Social Security Administration.

In 1977, Fletcher was appointed by Gov. Robert Bennett to a four-year term on the Kansas Public Employees Relation Board, and in this capacity, Fletcher accompanied a 23-person Labor-Management People to People delegation to China, the U.S.S.R. and Finland.

Fletcher was instrumental in pressuring the city of Bonner Springs to bring water service to the Grandview neighborhood.

The naming of the Head Start building after Fletcher is particularly appropriate, because in addition to her fighting to end segregation in Bonner, which persisted after the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, Fletcher was responsible for bringing the first black teacher to the town.

The teacher, Effie Boldridge, stayed with Fletcher for her first year, and recently returned to visit Fletcher, Jarrett said.

Fletcher is still sharp and active, and teaches Sunday school at Faith Missionary Baptist Church.

After the vote, which was met with applause from those in attendance at the meeting, Mary Kimbrough, president of the NAACP Bonner Springs Chapter, told the board, "I'm so thankful you did it. The Bonner Springs-Edwardsville district will be honored to have a school named for such a person."