Hanover County School Board gives final approval to new school names
George Copeland Jr. | 10/15/2020, 6 p.m.
The Hanover County School Board approved new names for the former Confederate Stonewall Middle School and Lee-Davis High School during a meeting Tuesday night.
The board unanimously approved the name Mechanicsville High School.
On a 6-1 vote, it approved the name Bell Creek Middle School. School Board member George E. Sutton of the Henry District cast the sole dissenting vote.
Tuesday’s action came at the end of a heated legal battle with the Hanover Branch NAACP over the schools’ former Confederate names and months of discussions that followed the board’s decision in July to rename the schools. The renaming process included public input and a poll on names recommended by a renaming committee.
However, disagreements last month over the names chosen by the committee, Mechanicsville Middle School and Twin River High School, led the board to delay the vote and take the name selection process into its own hands.
New mascots and colors for Bell Creek Middle and Mechanicsville High will be chosen by the schools.
