Dakota Rigsby may be getting a post office named in his honor.
Less than a month after Rigsby, 19, died in an accident aboard the USS Fitzgerald off the coast of Japan, Representative Tom Garrett (R-5th District) has introduced House Resolution 3183 to designate “the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 13683 James Madison Highway in Palmyra, Va., as the ‘U.S. Navy Seaman Dakota Kyle Rigsby Post Office.’”
There are more than 31,000 post offices in the United States and the vast majority of them are unnamed. Bills to dedicate them in honor of notable local residents have mushroomed in recent years. According the Congressional Research Service, at least 20 percent of all public laws passed by Congress are naming bills.
The process, while simple, can take several months to complete. Garrett’s bill has already been referred to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Once approved by the committee, it will be sent to the House for a simple voice or roll call vote before heading to the Senate, where it will likely pass by unanimous consent.
The local post office will later dedicate a small place somewhere in the lobby saying the building had been named after Rigsby by an act of Congress.
Garrett has also submitted a bill to name a post office on the University of Virginia (U.Va.) campus in honor of Captain Humayun Khan, the U.Va. alumnus who was killed in Iraq in 2004. The congressman’s office said in a press release that both the Rigsby and Khan families approved the bills.
