Back in August 2011, I wrote about the potential of sharing/a merger between the Corning and Villisca school districts. Later that week, Texas A&M announced it was abandoning the Big 12 and my attention went elsewhere.
This week, that issue resurfaced, after I read that Villisca’s girls’ basketball team lost in the state tournament. It turns out that Corning and Villisca postponed sharing for a year because of time issues. Much of the prep work was done in early 2012.
From this article in the Red Oak Express, when it came to new names, it appears putting the two towns together somehow missed the cut. Villisca students proposed five names, none of which were Corning-Villisca or Villisca-Corning.
Then the school boards went along with that, and chose “Southwest Valley.”
I prefer districts that tell you where they are — cities, counties, rivers* — rather than vague approximations. Since only two names are involved in this case, it would have been very simple. (Flip a coin, or say it a few dozen times out loud to see what sounds better, or put the town without the high school first to try to ease the sting.)
A feasibility study regarding the merger runs 60 pages (PDF), which gives you some idea of just how complex and detailed discussions about merging two school districts can be.
*Not counting West Fork. The name should specify which river.