Chapmanville Police Officer Kevin Ball was only 20-years-old when he tragically lost his life in a motorcycle accident on June 30, 2007 while off duty.

“After we lost him it was real hard on everyone,” his father Kenneth Ball said. “When you lose a child you just don’t know what to do. It’s almost like you die too.”

Kenneth Ball said it became very important to him to have his son memorialized.

When he heard about a new bridge being constructed on state Rt. 85, the same road where the tragic accident happened, he began calling officials to see if the bridge could be named after his son.

Now, the Kevin Lee Ball Memorial Bridge will forever keep the memory of his son alive.

“He wanted to be a police officer since he was 6-years-old,” Kenneth Ball said. “All he wanted to do was help people.”

“It is an honor to remembered this way,” his mother Brenda Price, of Robinson, said.

This is an honor that doesn’t make coping with the pain any easier, according to his parents.

“You feel like your future is gone when you lose your child,” Price said. “A part of you dies and you have to learn how to live again.”

The bridge will endure as a symbol that their son may be gone but never forgotten.

“It’s a bittersweet honor,” his father said. “His family misses him more than words can explain.”

Kenneth Ball said he would also like to see the Chapmanville Police Department retire his number.

“They said they would retire that number when he died,” he said. “It still comes across the scanner and it’s hard to hear.”

Kevin Ball graduated from Van High School in 2005 with honors, his father said.

He was the hero to his little brother, David Ball, and is also loved and dearly missed by his grandparents, Danny Lee Ball, Carolyn Jordan and Lora Jene Smith and his great grandmother Dorothy Canfield of Robinson. He was preceded in death by his grandfather, the late Bobby Smith of Madison.

Kenneth Ball thanked Doug Greene with the Boone County Parks and Recreation, state Delegate Josh Stowers, state Senator Ron Stollings, and 300 signatures from people of the community for helping the bridge dedication become a reality.

“I also want to thank the local VFW and Pam White with the Boone County Commission,” he added.