At the Rocky View School Board of Trustees meeting Thursday, the new school being built in Williamstown was formally named.

After hearing the proposed names from the public, the Board settled on Herons Crossing School.

A list of 14 submitted names went to committee that met on February 13 to discuss the names. The group also added 3 suggestions to the list. Each had its own discussion, and it came down to two names associated with the native bird.

The group suggested "Blue Heron School", which was favoured by committee chair Don Thomas, and "Herons Crossing School".

"There was strong feelings on all the names suggested" explained Sylvia Eggerer, who also was on the naming committee. She voiced the concern that the name that they eventually decided on was more mature, factoring in the school's eventual change from kindergarten to grade 4, to kindergarten to grade 8.

There was some discussion as to the punctuation of the name, if it should be "Heron's", suggesting the bird owned the crossing, or "Herons", as one of the traits of a Blue Heron is its monogamy. Once it finds a mate, they are inseparable. Due to time constraints, they left that debate to another day.