Debate over naming school for war hero

In the South Shore community of Patchogue, where American flags often fly from front-porch rails, an effort to rename a high school after a 1994 graduate who was granted the nation's highest military honor after dying in a firefight in Afghanistan has drawn vocal support.

But there is quiet grumbling that the community is being made into a living memorial to one individual.

Already, the Patchogue post office is named after Navy Seal Lt. Michael P. Murphy, as is the Brookhaven Town beach at Lake Ronkonkoma, where Murphy was a lifeguard. The Patchogue-Medford High School lobby holds a prominent display honoring Murphy, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor last October.

He was killed in June 2005.

"The question is, how many heroes do we have, and how many school buildings are there?" said one public employee.

A school board meeting this week drew about 400 people after a veterans group urged supporters of the name change to attend.

"There are 217,000 people buried at Calverton, and only one of them has the Medal of Honor," said Bryan Davis, referring to the national cemetery. Davis taught Murphy at Saxton Middle School.

Patchogue-Medford school district superintendent Michael Mostow said a committee will meet with Murphy's family and recommend a course of action within 60 days.

"If I were a gambling person, I'd say the school will be renamed," Mostow said.

He said several considerations would complicate a name change. For one, he said, the high school's current name is carved into a 60-foot marble frieze in the entry.

"It's not a small decision to change a school's name," Mostow said. "The district has never done that before."

Murphy's father, Daniel J. Murphy, said he would be willing to have a building other than the high school - perhaps Saxton - named in his son's memory.

But Murphy said if that were the decision, the school board would first have to agree that the high school would never be renamed in someone else's honor.

"The question comes if they decide to name the high school after a former superintendent, does he sit on the same plateau or a plane equal to Michael?"

Murphy said. "I told the board that except for naming the high school after a president, it would do a disservice to Michael's memory."