To hold the Mayo or not?
Imagine Fenway Park called "Boston Baked Beans" park? Then again, a good sponsor for Wrigley Field would be the Wrigley Gum Company, wouldn't it? Just think, the ball club could sieze the money while preserving its heritage at the same time!
All kidding aside, I think the name "Mayo" Civic Center is so helplessly synonomous with the Clinic that we as citizens have lost sight of the fact that Charlie Mayo, as private citizen and philanthropist, generously donated the land for "Mayo Park", as well as what in today's dollars would be a fortune to build the Civic Center. Without his generosity, these two public spaces would likely not exist today.
To me, the somewhat generic "Mayo" moniker implies that the Civic Center is simply an extention of the present-day Mayo Clinic, and doesn't draw enough attention to its truer heritage as the outgrowth of Charlie Mayo's legacy/philosophy of "giving back" to the community. So I think it should be renamed, more specifically, in his honor, as the Charles H. Mayo Civic Center.
Of course, almost everyone would still refer to the center as the "Mayo" Civic Center, but that's still far better than the lack of reminisce Hubert H. Humphrey gets when most everyone refers to the HHH Metrodome as "The Dome."
But why not emblazon in bronze in some prominent place inside the center the story of the life of the man who made all this possible? Yeah, we know he was founder of the Clinic and a world-famous surgeon but what about other, more personal aspects of his life such as his passionate interests in nature and in farming, or his family's life out at Mayowood and that estate's many interesting features. (This might help the History Center draw more vistors to Mayowood.)
While the money would be nice to have, I'd only sell the naming rights to the highest bidder if the Civic Center were in dire financial straits, but not as way merely to generate some extra revenue.
But maybe there's a Mayonaisse Company out there that would ante up the 400,000K so we could keep our Mayo name as we're being reminded to use more of the creamy white spread, too?
