Here’s Who We Should Name One of The New Schools After

Last week, a list of 15 possible names for the new Quincy Public Schools was announced. It was a mixed bag of generic geographic terms like Bluffs, Prairie Ridge, and Bayview, and those are all dumb (that's right, I said it, fight me). On the not dumb side of the name list coin are the suggestions naming it after a famous Quincyan, like abolitionist Dr. Richard Eels or celebrated scholar and lawyer Cora Agnes Benneson. Either one, and any of the six others on the list would be a fine namesake for the school. But there was one name noticeably absent from the list: Star of stage & screen John Anderson. Here's why John Anderson should have the school named after him.

- Cultural Impact: Anderson had an impressive 42 year acting career, making his debut in a 1950 episode of Fireside Theatre, and ending his career in a 1992 episode of Jake & The Fatman. He starred in the 2nd best Smokey & the Bandit film (first best of the sequels), four terrific episodes of The Twilight Zone, the iconic 80s mini-series North & South, and has played Presidents Andrew Jackson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

- Military Service: Anderson served in the United States Coast Guard during World War II, helping protect military convoys from U-Boat attacks.

- The Twilight Zone is Awesome: That's all there is to it, really. The Twilight Zone is an iconic television show, and the Odyssey of Flight 33, in which he anchored the cast as the pilot of the doomed flight, is one of the best of the entire series. If that's not enough, he also featured in other landmark television programs like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Hawaii Five-0, The Fugitive, Bob Newhart, Dallas, The Jeffersons, Little House on the Prairie, Quincy M.E., Star Trek: The Next Generation, Quantum Leap and MacGyver. OH! And he was in a little film called Psycho. You may have heard of it.

I guess there's also Academy Award Winner Mary Astor. And failing that, we could, NAH, should also consider Anderson's MacGyver Season six Episode seven co-star, one Abe Vigoda. That man is a national treasure.

John Anderson was in Eight Men Out with Michael Rooker, who was in JFK with Kevin Bacon. Anderson's got a Bacon Number of 2... there's another plus in the John Anderson column.