We Are 'Conval'
Once upon a time, long before the first shovel broke ground for Conval High School in the late 1960s at what was once part of the Vose dairy farm in North Peterborough, there was just a name. As nine area towns considered coming together to form one school district, the first question was, “What should we call ourselves?” And so in April of 1966 began a public opinion contest of sorts to decide upon a name. The leading choice seemed to be Contoocook Valley Regional School District, since the river flowed from Peterborough north (yes, north) to Antrim. But we forget that we could have been something else.
Other names being considered by voters were: Highland, Tri-Mountain, Wapack, MacDowell, Granite Hills and Yankee regional school district. As it turned out, none of those came close to Contoocook Valley in the eyes of the public. We had a winner! (And we still do.) But then the first problems:
“Who can spell it right?” and
“Who can even pronounce it correctly?”
“And not only that, how do you fit all those letters on a uniform?!”
And thus, the local “paper of record” in our area at the time, The Peterborough Transcript, shortened it to Con Val, and then quickly modified it to Con-Val...for awhile, anyway.
A little rabbit trail... Settling on a name may have been the first problem, but it wasn’t the biggest. While nine area towns liked the concept of coming together, getting a commitment was another story. For a time, there was a possibility that “Con-Val” would be nothing more than a name. Temple town leaders weren’t convinced at first and wanted to explore their options elsewhere, but eventually decided that the Contoocook Valley Regional School District would be their best choice. Most of their high school students were already attending Peterborough High.
But as unlikely as it seems today, the biggest resistance came from…Hancock.
A group of citizens in town were vocally against the idea and the associated costs to taxpayers, and even hired a lawyer to determine the legality of forming such a large co-operative school district under New Hampshire law. At a public meeting in January 1967, attended by about 150 townspeople, the matter came to a head when another group of citizens equally in favor of “Con-Val” helped stem the tide. One resident stood up and said: “Very few of you in this hall send any children to school. Neither do I. But I am willing to pay my fair share…we want the highest quality schools we can afford.”
And when the decision was officially placed before voters in all nine towns at the end of January 1967, even in Hancock, Conval Nation was decisively on its way—1,278 yes, 450 no. What many don’t realize is that the nine-town school district almost became 11 as Jaffrey and Rindge leaders wanted to join to form what would have been a humongous high school. But at the polls, their voters squashed that idea resoundingly. (Whew.)
That name, though. What a hodgepodge of interpretations over the years! The press and those outside the community didn’t quite know what to do with"Con-Val" at first, and the high school itself sent mixed messages. The New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association (NHIAA), for example, began by identifying our basketball teams as Contoocook Valley Regional High School. And then a few years later, changed it to Con-Val. And then later to Con-Val Cougars, then ConVal, then CONVAL, and then back to ConVal. Many in the state media followed suit, but even that didn’t completely settle the issue.
For example, the 1982 boys’ basketball team that qualified for the Class I (D2) tournament (pictured above) was listed in the program as CONVAL but the team photo showed them in uniforms that said ConVal.
A 2007 girls’ basketball photo (at left) that appeared in Fosters Democrat in Dover identified the visitors from ConVal, but the photo clearly showed the name to be CONVAL on the uniform.
Even within the high school, as seen in the photo collage at the top, it has become a name du jour.
So, why have we settled on Conval Hoop Heritage? (It should be noted that this was not a unanimous choice!) Simply, history. In the May 16, 1968 issue of The Peterborough Transcript—remember, this was before the Monadnock Ledger, then based in Jaffrey, had any significant impact on CV towns—suddenly and unannounced changed Con-Val to Conval. And it remained that way until the paper’s final days more than a decade ago.
Other publications at the time, such as the Keene Sentinel, followed suit for awhile. Why the change? Legend has it that the editors of the Transcript, back in the typewriter days, thought it simply faster to type a lowercase word than constantly having to hit the Shift key while on deadline. For whatever reason, they were the “paper of record” when the Contoocook Valley Regional School District was formed, and so we are simply choosing to stick with it in the spirit of heritage and history.
The Ledger-Transcript, Sentinel, NHIAA and others now prefer to use ConVal. So be it. But on this we can all agree:
WE ARE CONVAL!
#rollcougs
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ABOUT US…Conval Hoop Heritage is a project by alumni Steve Smith (’72), a four-year team statistician and career journalist, and Dick Ellingwood (’75), a player, coach, mentor and teacher, and passionate local history buff. We are grateful for the input and support of fellow alumni of all generations, and the resources from The Monadnock Center for History and Culture. In addition to this blog, you can follow Conval Hoop Heritage on our Facebook and Instagram pages.
