What's in a name? More than you might think

What's in a name?

Quite a lot, actually, especially for people who pay for the buildings they designate, or to the people who decide whom the structure is meant to honor.

After countless newsroom discussions, we've settled on the obvious solution -- we go with what's printed on the front of the building.

That's fairly obvious in the case of the Peter & Dolores Graff Events Center, which hasn't been around long enough to become victim of a misnomer, but mention "Memorial Auditorium," which our reporters do, and you might need a translator; oh, that's the city auditorium.

The McCook Armed Forces Reserve Center has that name on the front of the building, but the McCook is missing from the sign in the driveway, and although it's part of our national effort to achieve readiness, that word is nowhere to be seen.

The old fire barn has variously been the city holding center, the Public Safety Center, Red Willow County Detention Center (for a short time) and is now home to Prairie Gold Homes.

The name of our former governor and senator is frequently missing from references to the McCook Ben Nelson Regional Airport, we had trouble putting the "Valley" in the old Republican River Valley Events Center, and ask a native to direct you to Russell Park, and you'll probably just get a blank stare. (For the record, it's the park on East Fifth and under the east city water tower, dedicated in 2007 to the memory of Carson Russell, a long-time McCook attorney who once practiced with Sen. George W. Norris.

It's good to see the board of one of Nebraska's premier attractions acknowledge an important fact of history and agree to return the words "Strategic Air Command" to the name of what is officially the Strategic Air & Space Museum near Ashland.

For those of us visiting the facility since the 1960s, when it was founded at Offutt Air Force Base, it was, and always will be "the SAC museum" -- although at its founding it was called the Strategic Aerospace Museum.

It was officially renamed the Strategic Air Command Museum in 1992, and as some of the aircraft were deteriorating outdoors, it was moved to the current 300,000-square-foot complex next th Mahoney State Park just off Interstate 80 between Lincoln and Omaha, in 1998.

Without advance notice, the name was changed to the Strategic Air & Space Museum three years later.

It reminds us of the misguided decision, also without advanced notice, to rename McCook Community College as "the McCook Campus of Mid- Plains Community College."

That travesty was corrected -- it took a name change for the North Platte campus to North Platte Community College as well, but we're thankful that happened.

The board didn't announce the official name, but the Ashland museum will include the words Strategic Air Command as well as a new logo sometime later this year. An advertizing agency has been directed to come up with as many as five ideas for a new name and logo to reflect the museum's connection to the Strategic Air Command.

The choices will go to the museum's board in June.

We hope they come up with a name that appropriately honors the thousands of men and women who risked their lives to keep us safe during the darkest days of the Cold War.