Overlooked no more: NCDOT honors 23 Highway Patrol officers killed on the job
Hundreds turned out for the funeral of state trooper A.J. Stocks after his cruiser was hit by a garbage truck near Wake Tech’s southern campus in 2008. Stocks, an Army and Marine veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was later buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
But one tribute that eluded Stocks is one customarily given to state troopers who die in the line of duty: a bridge named in his honor. And he wasn’t the only one overlooked.
The State Highway Patrol determined that 23 of its 70 employees killed on the job since 1929 had not had a bridge dedicated to them. Col. Freddy Johnson Jr., the patrol’s commander, set out to fix that.
Starting last spring, the Highway Patrol sought 23 honorary designations from the N.C. Board of Transportation, which approved the final four on Thursday.
Last month, the board voted to name the N.C. 42 bridge over Interstate 40 in Johnston County the Trooper A.J. Stocks Bridge. His widow, Liane, was on hand.
“A.J. was a devoted son, brother, nephew, husband, father, Marine, paramedic, soldier and trooper,” she told board members. “His heart was huge, and he lived to serve. I know in my heart he is very proud to be honored with this bridge being dedicated to him.”
Since the 1920s, the state has named hundreds of roads, bridges and interchanges after individuals, usually politicians, business leaders, veterans or people killed in battle or locally in the line of duty. Former Congressmen G.K. Butterfield and David Price, NBA star Steph Curry, St. Augustine’s track and field coach George Williams and longtime Johnston County broadcaster Carl Lamm are among the people recently honored with an interchange or section of highway in their name.
The process is not automatic; someone has to ask the state Board of Transportation to designate a highway or bridge in a person’s memory and provide endorsements and documentation to show why they’re worthy.
Some honors came decades late
It’s not clear why the 23 Highway Patrol officers were overlooked.
Several had died decades ago, perhaps before the practice was established. The Smithfield Road bridge over Interstate 95 in Cumberland County was named for Patrolman Henry T. Timberlake this fall, nearly 85 years after he was killed in a crash on what was then known as the Fayetteville-Dunn Highway.
Three of the troopers honored Thursday died more than 75 years ago, including Patrolman Buck Fidler, who was killed in a motorcycle crash in Davidson County in 1936. Fidler wasn’t married and had no children, and First Sgt. Joseph Leonard said it wasn’t easy tracking down someone from his family.
But Leonard found a relative in Tennessee who said she not only knew of Fidler but had recently crossed a bridge near her home dedicated to a state trooper and wondered if such an honor had been afforded him. Leonard told her that the I-85 bridge over N.C. 109 in Davidson County would be named for Fidler.
“To hear the excitement in her voice was just unbelievable,” Leonard told the board. “What we’re doing today, as the state of North Carolina Department of Transportation and Highway Patrol, is extremely important to the family members of our fallen troopers and patrolmen, even if it happened in 1936.”
Terry Peacock never knew her uncle, Patrolman Thomas B. Whatley, who was shot and killed by a drunken man in Graham County in 1947. But she grew up hearing about her father’s brother Tom and says two members of the family alive today are named for him.
“We so appreciate that he is being remembered,” Peacock told board members Thursday. Choking up, she added, “This means the world to our family.”
Like Stokes, other troopers being honored died more recently, their memory fresh.
Officer Jackie L. Daniel was 43 when he was struck and killed in 1994 while helping a stranded motorist on Interstate 85 in Mecklenburg County. Last month, the board agreed to name the N.C. 73 bridge over the highway in neighboring Cabarrus County in his honor.
His daughter, Ashlyn Daniel Letourneau, told board members that her father was a man of few words but was dedicated to his job and helping others in his community.
“My family’s hope is that when others see my dad’s name on the bridge, it’s not to remember the tragedy of his death but to remember how he lived his life,” Letourneau said.
The largest number of the 70 troopers who died on the job were killed in crashes, the first six on motorcycles. But 21 were shot to death, and four died in plane or helicopter crashes. Two died of complications of COVID-19 they contracted on the job.
“All these men made the ultimate sacrifice for the state of North Carolina,” Col. Johnson told the board last month. “And on behalf of all of the Highway Patrol, I want to thank you for helping us go back in time and fix this.”
