Excerpt from Community Perspective by Michael O’Brien, FNSBSD School Board member
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (Sept. 18, 2016):
“…I began to research Badger Road Elementary’s namesake, Harry Badger. In fact, this year marks the 100th anniversary of Harry Badger’s conviction... Judge Charles Bunnell convicted him of three counts of sexual assault on a child...
History is replete with revered figures with imperfect morals, but emblazoning a local elementary school with the name of our community’s founding pedophile is wrong. The Fairbanks North Star Borough School District prohibits naming schools after anyone with a criminal record, but that policy came into effect well after Badger Road Elementary receive its name.”
Excerpt from “Badger Guilty of Assault on Little Child” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (March 6, 1916):
“Harry M. Badger, against whom an indictment charging assault on the person of a little ten-year-old girl, was returned by the grand jury on February 25, pleaded guilty to all three counts contained in the indictment in district court last Wednesday afternoon.”
Excerpt from “Our Schools: A History of Elementary and Secondary Public Education in the Fairbanks Area” 1989, p.76:
“Our school was named after Badger Road, which is named for Mr. Harry M. Badger.… In about 1917 Mr. Badger homesteaded some land south of Fairbanks near what is now the intersection of Badger and Bradway roads. He lived on his land until 1950 and sold the land before he died. He was also known as “The Strawberry King” because he had large strawberry fields on his homestead right across the road from where our school is now.”