The stretch of the state route – also called Far Hills Avenue - from Dorothy Lane to Stroop Road is named for U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer James E. Groves III, according to the city of Kettering.
Ohio House Bill 276 was signed into law March 4 dedicating a portion of Ohio 48, in honor of Groves, according to the city.
Groves was 37 and serving in Kandahar on March 16, 2013. The Kettering Fairmont High School grad was piloting a helicopter when it crashed, officials said at that time.
Mechanical failure was suspected in the crash, which another soldier who was aboard survived, military officials said.
Groves had previously served two tours in Iraq. According to the Department of Defense, he was assigned to 3rd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, Hunter Army Airfield.
Groves enlisted in the Army after commencement in June 1994, was nearing the end of his second tour in Afghanistan, following two in Iraq.
After his death, his family said he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, where he visited in the fall of 2012 while in Washington, D.C., that year to run the Marine Corps Marathon.
Groves was a Columbus native who moved to Kettering in 1978. While attending Fairmont, one of his assignments for the student television station was to interview military recruiters, his family told the Dayton Daily News in 2013.
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