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

Barbour signed the bill Monday, and it becomes law 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. He died in June.