Nearly fifteen years have passed since Hugo A. Owens Middle School first opened in the city's Deep Creek section. It has been almost four years since the death of its namesake, a prominent city leader and civil rights pioneer. But Owens' accomplishments remain enshrined in a display near the school's entrance and in the stories that students still hear from their teachers and others.

Norfolk State University students might think of Rosa Alexander as the all-female residence hall near one of the dining halls. The real Rosa M. Alexander, however, was more than nondescript brick.

Let's get the name straight first. That man-made body of water in central Suffolk, west of U.S. 58, is Lake Cohoon, not "Cahoon," as it's frequently misspelled. The confusion is understandable. The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries spells the name two different ways on its website. Even The Pilot has published stories containing the incorrect spelling.

The 1920s and '30s were known as the Golden Age of Flight, and naval aviator Apollo Soucek was one of its most golden boys.

The name rolls off the tongue now: Mayfair Mews. But the day the Navy jet slammed into the apartment complex, I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one tripping over it. Mayfield Moors? Mayfair Muse? Mayfork Mums? And what's a mew anyway?

Perhaps this should be called What's With Those Names? Drivers on U.S. 460 heading to Petersburg and beyond must certainly have wondered what's with the name Disputanta, an unincorporated town in Prince George County.

For much of its history, the tiny village of Eclipse was known as part of the neighboring community of Crittenden, a settlement of fishermen and oystermen dating to the 1600s and nestled on a peninsula between the Nansemond River and Chuckatuck Creek.

Docked at Willoughby Harbor Marina, the 35-foot Vulcan II is used more often for search and rescue than for putting out flames. Norfolk Fire-Rescue's vessel is named after the Vulcan, a fireboat that served the department from about 1923 to 1941, in an era when waterfront fires were far more frequent and dangerous.

Capt. Charles Melcher calls it "the second-largest naval base on the East Coast that no one has ever heard of." Melcher is commanding officer of Naval Support Activity Hampton Roads, a Navy command with headquarters off Terminal Boulevard adjacent to Norfolk Naval Station.

Once upon the late 1500s, some Englishmen gazed across the Atlantic. Europe was - and for a long time had been - an embattled place full of shifting alliances and religious warfare. England had recently crushed the Spanish Armada, finally gaining some maritime control over the country that had been gobbling up riches in the New World.