Riverhead Town officials will dedicate the former Lewis Street as “Dashan J. Briggs Way” in a ceremony Saturday morning.
The town board in April changed the legal designation of the street, which had been given the honorary designation in memory of Tech. Sgt. Dashan Briggs last May.
Briggs, a Riverhead native who grew up on Lewis Street, was killed March 15, 2018 when the military helicopter he was riding in went down in western Iraq. Briggs and the other six airmen aboard the HH-60 Pave Hawk perished. He was 30 years old and left behind a wife and two young children.
The fallen airman’s family subsequently asked the town board to officially and formally rename the street for Briggs.
The town wrote to residents on Lewis Street to notify them of its intention to officially rename the street and, receiving no objections, adopted the new name at the April 15 town board meeting.
The dedication event will take place on Saturday, July 13 at 10 a.m. in front of Millbrook Gables Park.
“By making this street renaming official we are saying to the Briggs family that Dashan will not be forgotten, that Riverhead will always remember his sacrifice on behalf of our country,” said Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith.
Briggs, who grew up with his grandparents on Lewis Street, was a 2007 graduate of Riverhead High School. He joined the Air National Guard 106th Rescue Wing and was deployed to Afghanistan as a Munitions System Specialist.
He and his wife Rebecca lived in Port Jefferson Station with their two young children, Jayden and Ava.
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