Gov. Haley Barbour signed a law that names the state Board of Education meeting room for the late state Sen. Grey Ferris.

Barbour signed the bill Monday, and it becomes law on July 1. The meeting room is in the state Department of Education building in downtown Jackson.

Ferris, a Democrat, was chairman of the Senate Education Committee in the late 1990s a played a key role in passing legislation that changed Mississippi’s complex formula for school funding. He ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1999.

Ferris died in June 2008.

The bill is House Bill 31.