By Rita Howell
A ceremony will be held Saturday, August 15 to mark the dedication of Brandon Presley Memorial Highway, a section of Highway 51 South at Pope. The ceremony will be held at the intersection of Highway 51 and Pope-Water Valley Road Saturday at 10 a.m., according to Mary Presley of Pope, grandmother of the late Marine.

An official MDOT marker will be erected at that intersection to identify the roadway.

Marine Corp. Presley died in December, 2005, of injuries sustained from an improvised explosive device detonated while he was serving in Iraq. The Panola native was raised in the Pope area and graduated from North Delta School.  He was 21 when he died.

The Mississippi Legislature passed a measure in March to designate a portion of Highway 51 in Panola County as  the “Corporal Michael Brandon Presley Memorial Highway.”