Kids research honorary names for West Las Vegas streets

Kris Hill

Monday, Dec. 18, 2000 | 10:59 a.m.

After weeks of preparation, students from four West Las Vegas elementary schools unveiled the honorary names they selected for the lettered streets A through N in a ceremony Wednesday at the West Las Vegas Library.

Children from Matt Kelly, Kermit R. Booker, Kit Carson and Madison elementary schools presented the biographies of influential black Americans who they honored with street names.

The honorary-names project was the brainchild of Las Vegas Councilman Lawrence Weekly, who represents Ward 5, in which the four schools are located.

"Years ago residents wanted to actually change the names of the streets," Weekly said. After he entered office a year ago, the issue came up again in his staff meetings.

Weekly decided to meet the residents in his ward halfway and began brainstorming with his staff.

He found that asking other adults merely complicated the process because there were more names tossed around than there were streets available.

The councilman decided to put the task to local schoolchildren because they don't care who's more important, and because they are more innocent, he said.

Students were then selected from fifth grade classes at the four schools by principals and teachers.

Penny Howell-Fuller, a fifth grade teacher at Booker, selected the students from her school.

"I chose good, hard-working students who would be motivated by the project," Howell-Fuller said. The children she chose also had to be patient enough to use the Internet, she said.

The project allowed students to brush up on their computer skills and learn about people they may not have otherwise learned about, Howell-Fuller said. And it made the children a part of the history of West Las Vegas, she said.

Some of the students were nervous while making their presentations, but Phillip Myers, a 10-year-old student of Howell-Fuller's, didn't seem nervous at all.

"I have a soft spot in my heart for Phillip," Howell-Fuller said.

Myers, an articulate and polite boy, told the audience at the celebration about the selection for D Street, Dorothy Dandridge, a singer and actress.

"I was a little nervous," Myers said, "but making the presentation was the best part (of the project)."

Myers and his classmates spent two months working on the project, reading books and surfing the Internet for information about important black people in history.

Howell-Fuller told her students that she wanted them to name the streets after influential people who weren't as well known as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Michael Jordan, but who deserved credit for their contributions.

Myers thought the project gave him an opportunity to learn about people such as Dandridge, Dr. Edith Mae Irby -- the first black woman to be accepted to an American medical school -- the dancing Nicholas Brothers or professional athlete Althea Gibson.

After students decided who they were going to name their streets after, they spent additional time rehearsing their presentations for the ceremony.

Some students presented in costume: one boy talked about Negro League star Andrew "Rube" Foster and was dressed as a baseball player, and another student wore a lab coat and stethoscope while talking about Irby.

The new, brown signs with white lettering will have the names of the people honored and a one or two-word description of them. They will be placed above the existing street signs beginning in January, public works officials said.

Weekly was pleased with the result.

"We were really impressed ... with the kids' enthusiasm," he said. He was also surprised by it because he thought the children might be bored by the project.

"They really put their hearts into it and were really sincere about the honorees they selected," Weekly said.

Weekly said the project was successful because it brought some change to the community, and he hopes that the new street signs will be embraced by his constituents.

The signs will grow on people, he said.