What do you do if your new school's namesake gets arrested for plotting to overthrow a country?
General Vang Pao Elementary. A school under construction, named for a hero in the Hmong community.
But Madison School Board President Arlene Silveira says the board may have to reconsider now that General Pao is charged in California with masterminding a violent plot to overthrow the communist government in his homeland, Laos.
That's something the General's CIA-backed army tried to do forty years ago and one reason he's a Hmong hero. Members of the Hmong community are standing behind their hero. Many, such as Koua Vang, say they would not be here today if it weren't for General Pao.
Still, it's vindication for the parents who raised objections to naming the school after a man some historians claim ran drugs and committed war crimes.
Parents like Heidi Reynolds who told the school board it has no choice but change the school's name now.