We here in Colorado and around our great nation face a number of significant and challenging problems. Certainly the situation in Ukraine is worthy of our attention and, in fact, our military aid. We now see what happens when a war criminal runs a country and controls the entirety of that nation’s political, military and media reins. My heart breaks with the daily onslaught of horrific news from Ukraine, and I strongly support our continued support to that brave nation and its remarkable president.

There are also vital news stories impacting Coloradans regarding COVID. It isn’t fully over, folks, and we need to keep our guard up. Fortunately, our terrific governor appears to be on top of things. But we are still averaging more than 500 Americans dying from COVID every day, and so shots and boosters are still a very real concern.

Those are but two examples of important and challenging problems facing Americans these days, and these and other issues deserve lots of attention and hard work. Facing such massive problems, smaller concerns can seem almost trivial.

Yet they are not.

I was reminded of the importance of stories not found on the front page when I read a Colorado Politics article that discussed recent efforts to rename roughly two dozen geographic features in our lovely state. An earlier story reported on a number of questionable naming decisions here in the Centennial State, and now the people in charge are taking action.

Colorado’s geographic naming board has been reviewing old and offensive names for places in Colorado, and has been coming up with a set of new names to submit to Gov. Jared Polis for his approval and signature. And though issues such as place names can seem less significant in times dominated by major news stories, that doesn’t mean the smaller issues are not worthy of attention and review.

Recently we have seen some national attention paid to military bases and other installations named after, well, traitors. The national Naming Commission recently reviewed thousands of recommendations on how to rename nine military installations currently named after confederate generals. As a retired military officer myself, it has always seemed quite outrageous to have something named in honor of a person who took up arms against the actual United States government. I’m pleased to see those renaming efforts are moving forward.

Here in Colorado, happily, we don’t seem to have any purely confederate names in place, though we do have at least one town, Chivington, named for a Civil War-era officer who murdered hundreds of Native Americans. So, I am pleased to see that our state commission has addressed names that really should be changed, including what some native American groups call “the S word,” or “squaw.”

I will readily confess that growing up I did not know the origin nor the offensive nature of that word, which is an English version of a Mohawk word for female genitalia. Surely, in the 21st century, that word needs to go from the several Colorado locations that use it in one form or the other.

I readily admit this is a tricky area. History is neither always clear nor just, and as we evolve as a nation our language evolves as well. One of my dad’s favorite words for things that were good was “swell.” Now, I’m guessing that not too many of us use that word too often these days. My grandparents, born in the 19th century, were liberals in their western Iowa community. And yet by the time of their deaths in the late-20th century, the words they chose to demonstrate their liberal view of race relations were seen by many as at least borderline racist. Times change and language evolves.

Sometimes the renaming is seemingly simple: the tallest peak in North America was named for a president that never saw it, Mount McKinley in Alaska. Yet it wasn’t until 2015 that the name of that beautiful mountain was returned to the native name which had lasted for centuries: Denali.

There are those who seek to “protect” the offensive and accuse those folks who wish to rid our nation and state of abhorrent names as running some kind of “cancel culture.” To that, when it comes to banishing deeply offensive names, I happily plead guilty. Our state’s tallest peak, currently Mount Evans, bears the name of a former governor deeply entwined in the murder and displacement of native peoples. We may soon have a new name for that majestic mountain, “Mt. Blue Sky,” a lovely name that honors the first people in the region.

There is a place for offensive place names, and that place is in our history books and our museums. They are certainly part of our history and should be recorded as such. But just as we understand the need to move past certain offensive words in our normal discourse, we should also be aware of the larger context in which such words have found root.

Denali is no less beautiful a mountain for having its original name restored, and the many beautiful sites in Colorado will be no less spectacular when they are named in such a way that the name brings honor and not offense.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.