WATERLOO - A new middle school opening next fall may be named for pioneering scientist George Washington Carver, Iowa State University's first black student and faculty member.

George Washington Carver Academy is being recommended to the Board of Education on Monday for the building replacing Logan Middle School next fall. The board meets at 6 p.m. in the Education Service Center, 1516 Washington St.

The name was the top vote-getter at a Dec. 4 Logan site council meeting that considered five submissions. It was the top choice for 16 of 17 attendees at the meeting.

Born in the early 1860s to a Missouri slave woman, Carver enrolled at Simpson College in 1890 after being refused admission at another school. He transferred to what was then Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, earning a bachelor's degree in botany and later a master's degree.

A synopsis of the site council's discussion tied Carver's accomplishments as a scientist, botanist, educator and inventor to plans for a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics focus at the new school. It was also noted that as a black man he was of the same race as the majority of Logan students.

Attendees at the site council meeting used a system to indicate their top three choices with weighted votes. Carver Academy overwhelmingly came out on top in that tally, too, with 50 points. Other submissions included J. Russell Lowe Middle School with 22 points, Jack M. Logan Middle School (the existing name) with 14, Booker T. Washington Middle School with nine and Rosa Parks Middle School with zero. Carver Academy is the superintendent's recommended choice, but the top three names are being forwarded to the board.

Lowe was a Waterloo educator, school board member and civil rights activist who died in 2007. Logan was a Waterloo superintendent. Washington founded Alabama's Tuskegee Institute where Carver gained an international reputation after leaving Iowa State. Parks sparked the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott that helped start the civil rights movement.

The site council has created a tentative logo and proposed the bulldog as mascot with school colors of black and white. A database of current schools across the state on the Iowa Department of Education Web site shows this would not be the first named for Carver. There is a George Washington Carver Community School in Des Moines and a George Washington Carver Elementary School in Dubuque.

Contact Andrew Wind at (319) 291-1507 or andrew.wind@wcfcourier.com.