McCall Idaho Headline News

The new elementary school under construction in McCall will be named after teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan, the McCall-Donnelly School District Board of Trustees decided on Monday.

There was no debate before the vote by trustees to name the school Barbara Morgan Elementary School.

An online survey revealed 421 people favored adopting the name Barbara Morgan Elementary School, while 200 said to keep the name the same as the existing McCall Elementary School.

Trustee Neal Thompson moved to name the school after the astronaut "since the consensus seems to be that's what people want to do."

Thompson added the honor would be a testimony to Morgan's perseverance in attaining her goal of flying on the space shuttle.

Morgan, 55, took flight Aug. 8, after a wait of more than two decades fraught with two disasters and more delays.

Morgan was selected as backup to Christa McAuliffe for NASA’s Teacher in Space project in 1985.

McAuliffe died in the Challenger space shuttle accident in 1986. Nineteen other names were suggested for the school including Morgan Elementary and Endeavor Elementary, after the space shuttle Endeavour Morgan rode into Earth's orbit. Morgan Elementary and Endeavor Elementary received one vote each.

Remaining names garnered from one to six votes and alluded to the local area, and included Jughandle, Whispering Pines, Payette Lakes, Eagle, Elo and McCall Pioneer.

Fifteen of those who took the survey wanted the school renamed but did not make a suggestion. The name "Payette Lakes" earned six votes.

From 1975 to 1978, Morgan taught remedial reading and math and second grade at McCall-Donnelly Elementary School.

From 1978 to 1979, she taught English and science to third graders at Colegio Americano de Quito in Quito, Ecuador.

From 1979 to 1998, she taught second, third and fourth grades at McCall-Donnelly Elementary School.

In 1998, she was hired by NASA to become a full-time astronaut and moved to Houston, where she trained at Johnson Space Center.