The City Council last night seconded the recommendation of the committee it appointed to come up with a new name for Rebel Drive and said it wanted to coordinate renaming that section of FM150 to Veterans Drive with a special ceremony on or near Memorial Day.
Although no vote was actually taken on the matter, council members generally agreed on the new name and asked the city to schedule the required ordinances to come before council for a vote at an interval so that an official Memorial Day street-renaming could be held during a ceremony which, presumably, would include unveiling the street signs containing the new name.
Council member Dex Ellison voiced some reservations that those soldiers who fought for the Confederacy — the “rebels” the city is trying to distance itself from through the street renaming — could also be considered as veterans. He suggested the initials “U.S.” be added before the word “Veterans,” but that suggestion triggered no support among his fellow council members.
Actions to rename Rebel Drive — that section of RM 150 from Center Street to Old Stagecoach Road — began in earnest last year when students at Hays High School, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, voted to abandon “Rebel” as the school’s mascot. The council voted to rename the street “Fajita Drive,” but that suggestion created a backlash from an extremely vocal segment of the community. As a result, the council backtracked and then created a special 15-person committee to come up with a new name. Vanessa Westbrook, the chair of this committee, reported on that body’s recommendations at last night’s City Council meeting.
Last month, Hays High School announced its students had voted to adopt “Hawks” as the “Rebel” replacement.
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