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Eric Pace says the newly renamed bridge across Greensboro’s Urban Loop spans more than a highway.

It reaches across more than 45 years to reconnect him with the father he never knew, Highway Patrol officer L.E. “Gene” Pace.

“Somehow, it gives me a greater understanding of who my dad is to me,” Pace said.

State transportation, Highway Patrol and county officials gathered Wednesday to dedicate the bridge to the elder Pace, who died in a single-car wreck while on duty in 1963.

About 100 people attended the ceremony at Pleasant Garden Baptist Church on Neelley Road. The bridge is located about two miles away on South Elm-Eugene Street, just outside Greensboro.

“We’re honoring someone who worked and gave his life that all of us be safe,” said Kirk Perkins, chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners.

The elder Pace, then 28, died Jan. 24, 1963, as he drove his patrol car along Randleman Road answering a call for help from another officer. He lost control after a tire blew out, sideswiping another motorist first and crashing into a tree.

Eric Pace was only 17 months old at the time. His mother, Dorothy Pace Batson, went on to finish college and become a teacher.

“I remember how hard it was for her and she did a great job,” daughter Viki Pace Smith said, adding that the bridge naming was a testament to her mother, too.

Eric Pace led the effort to designate the bridge. The owner of a concrete business, he had brushes with alcoholism and drug use that he partly attributes to his father’s absence.

He overcame his addictions in the mid-1990s and sees the memorial to his father as growing out of his recovery.

A state highway worker uncovered the new signs during the memorial service at the church. The state Department of Transportation discourages on-site bridge dedications because of traffic-safety issues.

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com