For as long as I can remember buildings, parks, hospitals, etc. have been most often named for the people who paid for them.

Thus in Ames we have a Moore Park, a Mary Greeley Hospital, etc., etc. In some instances money is raised in someone’s name to restore a dilapidated building—and Old Botany Hall certainly fit that description.

My paltry $300 donation to this project was a drop in the bucket, but thousands of such humble donations helped save this old edifice so filled with memories. (I flunked my first course in the basement of Old Botany.)

Those who have not been on campus long can not know the apprehension we contributors felt that Old Botany might be razed, should remodeling prove to be too impractical or too expensive.

I would have been willing to contribute to the Idi Amin Building or the Ghenghis Khan Hall if someone had donated money with that stipulation—to save Old Botany.

No matter what they call it, it will always be Old Botany to me. What I do mind is that people who did NOT pay to help save it, now feel they should have a say in any part of it.

They should be grateful, as I am, that it still stands—to lend its graceful outline to an autumn sky.

Along this same line, I too think they should change the name of Cyclone Stadium to honor its biggest contributor, John Ruan. (To Ruan’s credit, he gave the big bucks with no such strings attached.)

Let only those who built and paid for these things have a legitimate say in renaming them.

The rest is just so much bellyaching.

E. T. Mericle

Ames resident