Dick Cheney High Won't Fly in His Wyoming Hometown

TBO.com ^ | 4/12/02 | Elisabeth A. Wright

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

What does it take to get your high school named after you?

Becoming White House chief of staff? Secretary of defense? How about vice president of United States?

Not in Casper, where townspeople have not exactly rushed to embrace an idea - broached by a local businessman last year in a letter to the editor - that Natrona County High School be renamed Dick Cheney High in honor of its most famous graduate.

The School Board declined to consider the suggestion, saying it had not been given a formal proposal and pointing to a 1978 policy against naming schools after people. Others in this gritty town of aging oil refineries and sagebrush suburbs have come out against the idea in letters to the editor.

It's not as if Cheney is without honor in his hometown: He already has a federal building in Casper named after him, an honor bestowed in 1999.

And last summer, the athletic field at Cheney's old school - where Cheney played football and where his future wife, Lynne Vincent, showed off her baton twirling skills in the 1950s - was renamed Cheney Alumni Field. The surface, so hard-packed from years of use that the football team had to practice at a rival school, was replaced with plush artificial turf.

Cheney is said to have donated a generous sum to help refurbish the field.

In a statement, the vice president suggested he is happy not to change the name of his alma mater.

"As flattering as it is to have someone suggest renaming the school, it would always be NCHS to me and therefore I would recommend against a name change," he said.

It was V. Worth Christie, a marketing firm owner, who first suggested renaming one of the town's two high schools after a member of the Class of 1959. "He's the second most powerful man in the country. He's probably the most powerful vice president the country has ever known," he said.

But to Christie's surprise, most of the readers who responded with a flood of letters were against the idea. Many were Natrona County High alumni, and some recalled Cheney as a classmate and football player.

One alumnus, Alan Fenwick of Drums, Pa., remembered watching Cheney play football, and said: "We stunk."

Some questioned Cheney's allegiance to his state and hometown. It didn't help that Cheney changed his legal residence from Texas to glamorous Jackson, Wyo., because an all-Texas presidential ticket would have violated the Constitution.

"My uneducated guess is that he has done more for Halliburton Oil and Texas than for Wyoming," wrote Mabel Kudrna of Casper.

Alumnus George R. Scott of Casper cautioned against acting prematurely: "After all, President Clinton had a pretty good first hundred days."

Mayor Paul Bertoglio said Cheney should complete his term before another structure in Casper is named in his honor.

"You don't build a presidential library or honor a president before he has distinguished himself," he said.

[vrwinger]

"You shouldn't name public schools after people who are still alive." VRWinger, 4/12/2002

[Coop]

"After all, Impeached President Clinton had a pretty good first hundred days."

Tell that to Waco.

[SoDak]

Dick Cheney is one class act.