A respected and well-known black Vicksburg and Warren County educator whose name at one time graced what is now Vicksburg Junior High School could soon have a portion of the street that goes past the school named for her.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen are expected Wednesday to pass a resolution renaming a section of Baldwin Ferry Road Rosa A. Temple Drive in honor Rosa A. Temple, who was an educator for more than 60 years, from 1885 until her retirement in 1947.

According to a letter from Mayor George Flaggs Jr., the section of Baldwin Ferry from its intersection with Court Street to its intersection with Mission 66 will bear Temple’s name. It is the second time Temple has been honored.

The Vicksburg Warren School District in 2011 named an annex at Vicksburg Junior High School in her honor. Vicksburg Junior High from 1959 to 1971 was named Rosa A. Temple High School and was the city’s black high school when local schools were segregated for blacks and whites. The school is remembered in a floodwall mural.

“Rosa A. Temple High School was well-known in most, if not all, cities in the State of Mississippi for its academic achievements, football, basketball, baseball and track programs, and outstanding choirs,” Mary Logan, who is coordinating the effort to change the street’s name, said in a letter to the board.

“Former students of this school went on to play with professional teams in the NFL and a student was invited to the Ted Mack TV Program for music. Some of the students who graduated from this school are now doctors, educators, lawyers, teachers, military brigadier generals, air pilots and other high ranking members of the armed forces.”

Logan said the idea to rename the street was developed at the 2011 reunion of Rosa A. Temple Alumni.

“We thought she should be honored,” she said. “The Board of Mayor and Aldermen are able to do that.”

Rosa A. Temple was born Sept. 4, 1869. After attending Cherry Street High School and Jackson College, she began teaching in Vicksburg in 1885 when she was 16 years old. She taught all grade levels, but spent most of her years as a high school English teacher, and was known for exacting, uncompromising standards of excellence and for inspiring students and those who worked with her.

The school that bore her name was known for its academic and athletic excellence across the state.

Temple died in 1972 at the age of 102 and is buried at Cedar Hill Cemetery.