An Idea Worth Considering

Vol. IV, No. 6 - Can We Keep The Names of the Past Alive?

Earlier this week, we introduced readers to one of Troy’s most notable — yet largely forgotten — forefathers: Lt. Col. Barton S. Kyle, a Civil War hero who gave his life on the battlefield. His son Thomas carried the family name forward in a remarkable way, serving as the city’s mayor and eventually representing the region in the halls of Congress.

The Kyle name was so deeply respected in this community that it was enshrined in not one, but two school buildings. The first Kyle building opened in 1884. When it was demolished decades later, the community didn’t let the name disappear — a second school was built in his honor in 1950, a deliberate act of remembrance by a community that understood what it meant to honor its own.

That kind of intentionality matters, because we’re at a moment where it’s quietly slipping away.

As Troy grows with three new school buildings, Lt. Col. Kyle won’t be among the names above the door. The district has already settled on directional names — North, South, East, and West. Clean. Practical. Unfortunately, it also forgettable. And as the name Kyle fades from the schoolhouse, so do Cookson, Heywood, Hook, and Van Cleve.

These aren’t just names on brick facades. They represent real people who shaped this place — educators, civic leaders, veterans — whose contributions were considered significant enough at one point that the community put their names where children would see them every single day. Once those names leave public life, they rarely come back.

There’s a compelling case that any growing community doesn’t just look forward — it also holds on to what makes it distinct. Cardinal directions tell you where a building sits. They say nothing about who we are or where we came from. The names on our schools have always carried that weight, and replacing them with compass points is a quiet but real erasure of community identity.

The school district has made its decision, and that’s their call to make. But the conversation doesn’t have to end there. This may actually be an opportunity for the city to step in and fill the void in a meaningful way.

McKaig-Race Park deserves a closer look. One of the city’s newer parks, it sits nestled between West Race Street and McKaig Avenue — just down the street from Heywood School and within easy walking distance of Kyle School. For generations, the kids from those two neighborhoods have played in that green space. Renaming it Heywood-Kyle Park would give it a distinct identity rooted in the very community it has always served.

For those who don’t know Margaret Heywood’s story, it’s worth telling. She was a teacher in the Troy City School District who came from a family of considerable means. Rather than keeping that wealth to herself, she established a scholarship program to help students pursue careers in teaching — investing in the profession she loved and in the next generation of educators. When a new school was built at the corner of Ridge and McKaig in the early 1930s, the board didn’t hesitate. Naming it after Miss Heywood was the right thing to do, and the community agreed.

A Heywood-Kyle designation at McKaig-Race Park would honor both of these figures in a setting that already carries their legacy. It would give two important names a permanent home in Troy’s civic landscape, even as they disappear from the schoolhouse walls.

I’m a Kyle Cobra. That name has meant something to me my entire life, and I know I’m not alone in that. Keeping it alive through a park isn’t nostalgia for its own sake — it’s a statement about who we are as a community. Troy is a city that looks ahead. But the best hometowns also know how to look back.

Tell us what you think about this idea. Our paid subscribers are more than welcome to leave a comment in the comment thread below. Feel free to reach out to me at pinnaclestrategiesltd@gmail.com

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