#IStandWithFeemster Gaining Traction
When the Washoe County School District Board of Trustees voted in May to name a new academy on the site of Hug High School after the late state politician Debbie Smith, Adrianne Feemster decided to motivate the community and galvanize support for her grandmother, Dolores Feemster, instead.
"This has been an inequitable process,” and “this location is not a right fit," Adrienne Feemster keeps saying of the Smith choice.
There are ongoing plans for the high school to be converted to a Career and Technology Education Academy by 2023. Adrienne thinks it should be named after her grandmother and not Smith as is the current plan.
“My grandmother has inspired me to just be an all around good person,” Adrienne said in a recent Our Town Reno interview, “and to work from your heart outward,” a lesson she shared with many others who saw discrimination all around them, during her 30 plus years as a counselor at Hug High.
Feemster gave birth to 12 children, and there were many other kids who considered her family. She celebrated so-called May Birthdays for the many birthdays that month in her family, an annual event that some community members that were like extended family would participate in. Her grandmother, she remembers, had the capability of bringing together friends and even past foes, who came to at least greatly respect her and appreciate her value to the community.
At Hug High, “she had the opportunity to individually affect life after life after life, as the kids and students came through the school,” Adrienne said of her late grandmother. She was remembered by over 2,000 people at her funeral in June 2018 .
Creating a Refuge for Many in Difficult Times and Becoming a Leader in the Community
Adrienne has heard many stories of former students explaining how they felt like they were Dolores’s own children; that she had a way of connecting with the students and encouraging them to become the best they could.
Adrienne explained that some had no place else to go when they experienced racially motivated attacks in the community, but that Dolores always opened up her home as a place of refuge. Her support did not stop with students.
Adrienne also talked about how her grandmother offered a safe haven for women who experienced domestic violence. “There were quite a few women that would seek her for refuge, which is why there is a shelter shared in her name with a Senator in the Northeast community,” Adrienne said.
Dolores lived in Reno her entire life and grew up in a time when people of color had to contend with daily racism, segregation and redlining. She called the northeast part of town home for over 50 years and lived alongside the students and youth she mentored. When her own kids could not join organizations like the Campfire Girls, a youth development group, she started Cub Scouts and Bluebirds for her area and children.
“Because she didn't want her children to feel rejected in that way,” Adrienne said, "and that's how her children first had the opportunity to be a part of those programs.”
Known for her patient demeanor, Dolores was also a leader in the local civil rights movement. Serving many roles in the Reno-Sparks Branch of the NAACP, she eventually rose to its presidency in 1981. Dolores was also a founding member of the Northern Nevada Black Cultural Awareness Society. Dolores received many awards recognizing her tireless efforts to make Reno a stronger community, including Mother of The Year from the Reno Business and Professional Women’s Club and the University of Nevada, Reno, President's medal. Many of her children continued her legacy and served the community though careers in a variety of public service positions.
A Drawn out Renaming Process
In November of 2019, the Washoe County School District Board of Trustees Board President Katy Simon Holland asked each member which name they preferred. Four of them said they wanted to name the former high school in honor of Dolores Feemster. The audience was also filled with some who wanted the Smith name. Those wanting to honor Smith said it would acknowledge her role as a state senator and pay homage to the bill she drafted and helped pass which increased funding for schools in Washoe County. Many of Dolores’s children were also at this meeting and spoke in favor of honoring their mother. After hearing dozens of these public comments, the trustees agreed to refer the naming process back to the School Naming Committee, suggesting they could consider a joint name that honors both women and appeals to the entire community.
At the next meeting in December, the community again showed up in support of the Feemster name, along with dozens of online comments supporting the Feemster name. Six people spoke in favor of naming the new academy after Dolores. This time, Adrienne passionately expressed frustration with the Board of Trustees for their lack of transparency regarding the naming process. She referenced the board’s prior discussion held in November and highlighted their support for the new academy to have her grandmother’s name.
However, at the February 2020 meeting of the School Naming Committee it was voted to recommend just the Smith name to the Board of Trustees. This was done despite another outpouring of community support to honor the late Dolores Feemster. After the meeting, Adrienne filed a formal grievance citing violation of various statutes and policies. The district immediately began an investigation and within a month completed the internal review and found no policy violations. At the May 12th, 2020 Washoe County School District Board of Trustees meeting, which due to the pandemic was broadcast live via YouTube, the trustees voted to rename Hug High after the late politician Debbie Smith. This platform limited community participation which Adrienne believes further marginalized the community due to limited abilities to participate.
Adrienne started a petition to document the overwhelming support for the new academy to be named after her grandmother. Currently, it has over 1200 signatures and there is an “outpouring of support through the social media platforms,” she said.
A Petition and Events to Raise Awareness
The community has held many events to raise more awareness about the actions the school district has taken. She plans to continue fighting to get the name changed back to Feemster.
“It’s so important because of the legacy, the story that it tells, which is a part of my grandmother's legacy and it belongs to not just my family, but the community, it belongs to the city,” she said. Dolores was an African-Italian American and Adrienne feels the school district has the opportunity to move the community forward, particularly in a tumultuous year of social injustice and the growing Black Lives Matter movement, by naming the former high school after her grandmother.
Adrienne feels the school district is disconnected from the community by eliminating the Feemster name altogether. “There’s so many stories that come out of that community,” she said. “I feel like disregarding an opportunity to honor an African-American” shows the “board is out of touch not to understand the purpose.” As a community motivator, Adrienne is urging the board to do more research and consider the decisions they are making. She continues to encourage the community to contact the Board of Trustees with questions and public comments. “They have not answered the call to the community,” she said.
Adrienne will not be deterred. She is encouraging the community to show up at the next Board meeting held this Tuesday to offer public comment and give a face to the petition. She believes the answer no “is not absolute and that oftentimes people feel like their voice, their actions don’t really matter.” Adrienne wants the community to know their individual voices and actions, when organized together, do matter, and that change, even if there are many setbacks, barriers and obstacles, can still happen.