Dedication scheduled for fallen soldier By Austin Kinghorn  Baytown Sun - Published November 10, 2005
   State Rep. Craig Eiland will be on hand to help dedicate a memorial to fallen soldier and Beach City resident PFC Wesley Riggs at a ceremony Friday.  The ceremony began at 10 a.m. at the Beach City Community Building on FM 3180.

Eiland, who represents Chambers County in the state legislature, is scheduled to speak while Chambers County Judge Jimmy Sylvia and Precinct 4 Commissioner Bill Wallace will also be in attendance. Beach City Mayor Guido Persiani is expected to read a proclamation and Fr. Andrew Moore of Holy Trinity Catholic Church will deliver the benediction.

Persiani said the memorial, which consists of a new flagpole outside the Beach City Community Building and a red granite monument, is the product of donations and cooperation among local government. The memorial was donated Navarre Funeral Home while the Chambers County Parks Department installed the new flagpole and added landscaping.  “It is very simple, but I think we can be proud of how it was done,” Persiani said.

Riggs was 19 when he was killed in May near Tikrit, Iraq, when a roadside bomb exploded near his patrol.  Riggs joined the U.S. Army in February 2004 after graduating from Barbers Hill High School. He was a member of the 2nd Platoon, D Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army based out of Ft. Stewart, GA.

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In early 2010, I began an attempt to have Wesley Riggs name added to the Veterans Memorial in Bicentennial Park, in Baytown to honor him and his service to our community.  The Kiwanis Club of Baytown maintains the memorial and evidently, it only honors those who have attended school in the Goose Creek Consolidated School District.