Last month, Gov. Tom Wolf signed into law bills that designate portions of roads and bridges named for local heroes, first responders and personalities, most of whom are not known outside of their immediate area.

Unless you’re a family member, close friend or someone who specializes in eyeballing obscure signs along the roadway, you probably don’t see many of these commemorative plaques placed by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation as you go whizzing by.

Known this year as H.R. 11, Wolf signed legislation that designates a portion of Route 92 in Luzerne County as the Robert F. Kile Sr. Memorial Highway.

I had never heard of Kile, and I suspect that neither did you, so I did some research to find out why the 253 members of our General Assembly would take time from their busy duties to engage in this kind of constituent recognition.

I found that Kile of Harding (Luzerne County) was an Exeter Township supervisor and Franklin Township fire chief, who was shot and killed during a neighborhood dispute last year.

As part of the same legislation, a bridge in Cumberland County was designated as the Sen. Hal Mowery Memorial Bridge; a bridge on Interstate 79 in Erie as the U.S. Marine Capt. Thomas J. Kennedy Jr. Memorial Bridge; and another bridge on Interstate 79, also in Erie, as the Major Tom Carr Memorial Bridge.

The bill was introduced by Aaron Kaufer, R-Luzerne, with bipartisan support from legislators in the home districts of the other honorees.

These types of bills are passed without much statewide fanfare. They almost always pass unanimously since the legislators depend on the sponsoring colleague to have done his or her homework to assure that some mobster or bad guy is not among the honorees.

Sometimes citizens balk over the name change. This is precisely what happened in Allegheny County a few years ago when residents resisted the change of a familiar name, so the legislator found another way to honor the person.

The impetus to nominate someone for this designation usually comes from the family or, in some instances, a community effort to raise awareness of the person’s contributions or sacrifices.

I am sure that Kaufer, for example, relied on others for the way the bill refers to the late Sen. Hal Mowery, who spent 24 years in the General Assembly - 13 in the House of Representatives and 11 in the Senate.

“By all accounts, Sen. Mowery was a loving family man, a respected businessperson and a dedicated and accomplished public servant worthy of emulation for generations to come,” the bill says.

As for the others, Capt. Kennedy was awarded the Silver Star for bravery in the line of duty in Vietnam where he was killed in 1966. Maj. Carr was killed during a 1998 Air Force attack-training mission in Florida.

There are notable examples of roads and bridges in the five counties that make up the Times News area.

For example, the bridge on Route 903 in Jim Thorpe was named the Andrew J. “AJ” Baddick Memorial Bridge in 2014, then replaced and rededicated in 2016. Baddick, 26, of Jim Thorpe, was killed in 2007 while trying to rescue a fellow soldier in Iraq whose vehicle had gone into a canal. State Rep. Doyle Heffley, R-Carbon, shepherded the legislation through the General Assembly, fulfilling a promise Heffley said he made to Baddick’s mother.

In 2015, Rep. Jerry Knowles, R-Schuylkill-Carbon, introduced a bill that had 54 of his colleagues as co-sponsors and which designated a portion of Route 61 in Schuylkill County, from Route 443 to Route 2014, as the “Captain Jason B. Jones Memorial Highway.” In 2013, Jones, 29, of Orwigsburg, completed the Special Forces qualification course to join the Green Berets. While serving as commander of a 12-man Special Forces A-Team in Afghanistan, he was killed in action.

A few other examples:

• The bridge over Pine Creek in Hegins Township, Schuylkill County, that is part of Route 4011 is known as the “A. Donald Buffington Memorial Bridge.” Buffington, who died at the age of 88 in 2018, was a funeral director and longtime member of the Tri Valley School Board.

• A portion of Route 54 in West Mahanoy Township is designated as the Francis V. “Angie” McAndrew Memorial Highway. McAndrew, who died in 2016 at the age of 71, was a former Schuylkill County sheriff and former state police investigator.

• A bridge on Route 209 over the west branch of the Schuylkill River in Pottsville is named the “Captain David A. Boris Memorial Bridge.” Boris, 30, of Pottsville, was killed in 2007 while on active duty with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan.

One of the most famous named bridges in our area is the one spanning the Lehigh River on Route 209 between Lehighton and Weissport and named in 1983 for the late state Rep. Thomas McCall, 46, of Summit Hill. McCall, a Democrat who served in the state House for nearly seven years representing Carbon County, died unexpectedly on Christmas Eve in 1981.

Some of these more than 500 named roads and bridges also honor nationally or internationally known celebrities, such as Gen. Douglas MacArthur for whom Route 145 (MacArthur Road) in Whitehall Township, Lehigh County, is named, or NFL football star Joe Montana, for whom two bridges in Western Pennsylvania are named, or St. Louis Cardinals baseball great Stan Musial, for whom a bridge in his hometown of Donora is named.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.