The Stafford County Board of Supervisors voted 5-2 to not pursue naming the county's portion of Route 1 after fallen Virginia State Trooper Jessica Cheney.
The Board of Supervisors was going to request the Virginia State Superintendent Gary T. Settle petition the Commonwealth Transportation Board in Richmond to advocate renaming the road in Cheney's honor. However, a vote to table the issue was presented by Garrisonville District Supervisor Mark Dudenhefer, stopping the renaming in its tracks.
Cheney gave her life in the service of Virginians. At 23, only two years after becoming a trooper, a car collided with Cheney at a work zone on Route 1 at the Stafford Courthouse on January 17, 1998. The county had considered renaming the four-lane road after Cheney in response to a bill by Rep. Joshua Cole (D-Stafford, Fredericksburg), passed into law by Gov. Ralph Northam, to rename the roadway from Jefferson Davis Highway, which honors the president of the confederacy. Portions of Route 1 that have not already been renamed, or jurisdictions that don't petition the state for their own name, will have their portion of the road automatically named Emancipation Highway.
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