Legislation designating a section of highway in St. Louis County as the “Cloria Brown Memorial Highway” has been given final approval this week by the Missouri House.
State Reps. Patricia Pike (center) and Jim Murphy (left) and Speaker Elijah Haahr (right) brief Capitol reporters on January 23, 2019 (photo courtesy of Tim Bommel at House Communications)
Brown, who served three House terms, died last March after battling cancer. State Rep. Patricia Pike, R-Adrian, says Brown was an amazing lawmaker.
“She was a champion of women, (the) less fortunate, veterans, she was very passionate about the human trafficking issues of the state,” Pike says.
The House voted 150-0 this week to designate a section of heavily-traveled Lindbergh Boulevard from I-55 to Lin Ferry Drive as the Cloria Brown Memorial Highway. State Rep. Jim Murphy, R-St. Louis County, who replaced Brown, says district residents “fell in love” with Brown.
“As I went around in my campaign I would go to doors and they would invite me in and say Cloria would come here often and we’d have coffee,” says Murphy.
Under the two-sentence Pike-Murphy legislation, private donations would pay for the highway signs and the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) would place them.
“This bill is very appropriate because her final resting place actually overlooks the road that we’re naming in her honor, and it’s just very, very appropriate,” Murphy says.
Brown’s House colleagues on both sides of the aisle praised Brown, after her death.
Brown represented a swing district in south St. Louis County, a district that includes Mehlville.
She faced Democrat Vicki Englund in five elections. Englund won in 2008 and in 2012. Brown won in 2010, 2014 and in 2016.
Cloria Brown graduated from McKinley High School in St. Louis and from Washington University, where she earned a B.A. in information systems.
Brown also served on the Lemay Child and Family Center Board of Directors.
Click here to listen to House Speaker Elijah Haahr, R-Springfield, and State Reps. Patricia Pike and Jim Murphy brief reporters on January 23, 2019: