ROTC cadets at  Reed High School in Sparks will dedicate a hallway at the school to a graduate who died while serving in the Army in Iraq in 2003. A formal ceremony will be held at the school Wednesday, and the surviving family members of Capt. Josh Byers are expected to travel from Tennessee to attend, as the area is named the “Josh Byers Leadership Hallway.”
Byers, who graduated  in 1992, served as Cadet Battalion Commander and student body president simultaneously, the only Reed student ever to do so.  After graduation he went on to the Military Academy at West Point.  Byers rapidly rose to the rank of  Captain and took command of an armored cavalry company in Iraq. On July 23, 2003—he was fatally wounded when his vehicle was destroyed by an improvised explosive device. His final three words were an order to his soldiers: “Keep moving forward.”