The Henrico School Board voted Oct. 25 to name the county's newest public school, opening next fall in Short Pump, David A. Kaechele Elementary School, in honor of the longtime Three Chopt District supervisor.

The school is being built on Pouncey Tract Road, and a redistricting committee of citizens is working to recommend attendance boundaries for it. The committee is expected to present two options to the School Board at its Nov. 8 meeting, and the board could adopt a set of boundaries by the end of the year.

School Board Chair Diana Winston, who represents the Three Chopt District (in which the school is located) recommended that the new school be named for Kaechele, and the board unanimously agreed.

Kaechele's name was one of more than 80 name suggestions made by the public for the school. Several other suggestions already adorn county schools (Mills E. Godwin, Glen Allen, John Rolfe, Pocahontas and Virginia Randolph).

Among other suggested names: County View, Freedom, Fox Path, Henland (a combination of Henrico and Goochland), Lone Tree, New Dawn, Old Farm, Quarry Hill and Rock Quarry (in deference to the school's location near a quarry) and Steel Coach.

The board had not named a new school after an individual since L. Douglas Wilder Middle School opened more than a decade ago, though Holman Middle School, which opened in 2010, bears the last name of the family that owned the land on which it is located.

In addition to Kaechele, a number of other prominent local and national figures were suggested as worthy school name candidates, including Henrico County Manager Virgil Hazelett, former county manager Edward Beck, former Henrico School Board members Robert Smart and Lloyd Jackson, longtime Henrico educator Warner Jones, Sr., former Henrico superintendent William Bosher, space pioneers Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride and William Satterwhite (whose family owned for more than 200 years the land on which the school will be located).