Debating the Malverne High School name change

Many Malverne High School alumni who attended the meeting hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in at least 20 years. Some moved away, others simply fell out of touch. But Facebook brought them all together for a cause: don’t change the high school name.

Marc Loftus was among the alumni who started Facebook pages opposing the name change proposed earlier this year. Lakeview residents Rener Reed and Lynn Singleton started a petition in May to rename the high school in honor of the late Elizabeth Carol Cherry — a former teacher who had herself graduated from the district and returned to teach there for 31 years before retiring in 2006. Cherry died in March 2010 and posthumously received the district’s Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award this past January.

Loftus, class of 1987, and other alumni agreed that Cherry deserves recognition and honor for her years of service to the district, but said naming the high school after is not the way to do it. And they have garnered a significant amount of support as evidenced by a petition they started last month that now has more than 800 signatures.

“[W]e don’t want to disrespect Mrs. Cherry in anyway,” Loftus said, “but I feel there’s probably just as many reasons not to change the name as there are to change it.”

One reason not to change the name is that doing so would extinguish the district’s good reputation and the positive associations outsiders make with it. Fred Glasser, a 1980 alumnus who still lives in Malverne, said people know where Malverne is and they’ve heard of Malverne High School — its diversity, unity and great history.

“The high school, its history, its heritage is much bigger than any one person, any one neighborhood, any one group,” said class of 1984 alumnus Ray Carter. “It’s a big part of a lot of lives.”

Carter, who went by the nickname “Spike” and wore 75 for the Mules football team when he attended the high school, charged board trustees with the responsibility to “protect and preserve” the district’s history and culture. “Rise to the occasion and do the right thing,” he said.