University of Washington student senator Jill Edwards was lambasted by conservative bloggers and talk show hosts earlier this year when she questioned whether a member of the U.S. Marine Corps, such as World War II hero Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, was the type of person her school wanted to produce or honor.

She and other student senators who challenged a proposal to memorialize Boyington on campus deserve the criticism and history lesson they received after the Feb. 7 meeting.

Boyington, a Coeur d’Alene native and 1934 UW graduate, epitomized heroism shown by the generation who survived the Depression and defeated dictatorships bent on world conquest on two fronts. Finally, the Student Senate decided to honor Boyington and all other UW Medal of Honor winners.

The Coeur d’Alene Airport Advisory Board and county commissioners should come to their senses, too.

For two years, the Marine Corps League Detachment 966 and other local veterans have lobbied county officials and the advisory board to name the airport after Boyington. The commissioners sidestepped the controversy by sending the issue back to the advisory board, which has been polite to the Marine veterans but rigid. On Wednesday, board members gave a group of vets the ultimate runaround by listening to its proposal and then letting it die with little discussion. Or without much hope that the board would discuss the matter again soon.

The board’s action – or lack of action – toward the veterans was deplorable, maybe more so than the statements made by Edwards and other student senators during the February debate. As a group charged with the oversight of the county airport, the advisory board should understand Boyington’s significance to area history, local war veterans, and of his courage and contribution to the WWII effort, which was immortalized by a television series based on his life.

If the board doesn’t want to rename the airport after Boyington, it should say so and explain why, rather than treat former service men and women like beggars. If board members don’t want to honor Boyington because he battled alcoholism after commanding the famous Black Sheep Squadron and surviving numerous dogfights as a fighter pilot, then they should admit that. If they don’t want to be bothered with erecting a sign and a memorial to Boyington, they should be candid about that, too. If they prefer to continue to use the misnomer “Coeur d’Alene Airport” for a Hayden facility, they should say why.

However, they shouldn’t tell Boyington admirers that this is a bad time to talk about honoring the valiant Marine because of the area’s property tax issues, as Chairman John Adams did at the meeting. Or that they should try to get a local park named after Boyington rather than the airport. Boyington, after all, was an aviator, not a gardener. He modeled uncommon valor in the skies above the South Pacific before being shot down, captured, starved and tortured for 20 months.

Renaming the airport in his honor should be a small thing to commemorate Boyington’s courageous example.