Boulder High rules!

A student group's campaign to rename one of Colorado's oldest high schools Barack Obama High fizzled Thursday in the face of widespread opposition from students and residents.

"It's become a lot more controversial than we wanted it to. It's garnered a lot of negative reactions," said 16-year-old Ben Raderstorf, president of the school's Student Worker Club, which triggered national publicity when it proposed the idea Wednesday.

Raderstorf said the small student group worked hard to grab news media coverage for the idea to, as its news release declared: "Honor the momentous achievement of his election as an African- American, inspire the community with his ideals of unity and hope, and reflect the progressive spirit that is shared by both Barack Obama and our school environment."

"We were somewhat naive about it," Raderstorf said of the backlash.

The goal was to use media attention to galvanize student and community support and launch a broader discussion of the name change.

Instead, he said, other kids mistook them for grandstanding media-mongers doing an end-run around the student body.

"A lot of people thought we were in it for the media coverage," Raderstorf said, citing the longtime social protest group's controversial stands in the past.

Raderstorf said he's been flooded with criticism from his own community and from around the country that it was premature to rename the 134-year-old school for a new president.

"The time frame felt very wrong to a lot of people, being that Obama has merely been in office for a couple weeks," Raderstorf said.