New school in Lacey will be called Salish Middle School

South Sound’s newest middle school finally has a name.

The North Thurston School Board voted 3-0 Tuesday night to name its fifth middle school Salish Middle School.

The district’s 10-member school naming committee presented its top choice at the board’s regular business meeting.

“We reviewed just right around 300 responses, and there emerged a very clear frontrunner,” Nisqually Middle School Principal Karen Owen, who will lead the new school, told the School Board.

Other top choices were Hawks Prairie Middle School, Medicine Creek Middle School and Meridian Middle School, she said.

Board members Aaron Owada and Leah Wells were absent from the meeting.

Salish Middle School will open next September at 8605 Campus Glen Drive NE, Lacey, in the Meridian Campus development.

Salish or a similar form such as Salish Reach and Salish Shores, was suggested about 35 times in a community survey conducted by the naming committee.

Salish is a word that represents a group of languages spoken by several tribes in the area, Owen said. The committee felt strongly that it needed to continue the district’s tradition of using a Native American name for its comprehensive middle schools, she said.

“The Nisqually tribal leadership also was consulted,” Owen added.

The $48 million, 109,000-square-foot school was designed by BCRA Architects of Tacoma. The project’s contractor is BNCC of Steilacoom. It’s being funded by a 20-year, $175 million bond that voters approved in February 2014, which generated money for the new middle school, upgrades or modernization projects at five schools and other capital improvements in the district.

The new name also inspired the school’s symbol: the raven.

The district’s other comprehensive middle schools are Chinook, Komachin and Nisqually. North Thurston also is home to Aspire Middle School for the Performing Arts.

Emma Richmond, 10, who lives in the neighborhood around the new school and will be part of its first sixth-grade class, said Salish Middle School was her top choice.

She said she liked the name because of its meaning and because it’s easy to spell.

“It’s not just one tribe — it covers several different communities,” added her mom, Lorrie Richmond, who served on the naming committee with her daughter.

This story was originally published September 16, 2015 at 7:34 AM with the headline "New school in Lacey will be called Salish Middle School."