Petersen Highway signs shouldn't be changed

For about 30 years now, motorists traveling north on U.S. Highway 75 from Fourth Street in Holton, as well as those driving south on U.S. 75 from the junction of Kansas Highway 9 near Netawaka, have seen signs designating that stretch of U.S. 75 as the “Danny J. Pe­tersen Memorial Highway.”

Those signs have included a des­ignation that Petersen was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1970 for his heroic actions during the Vietnam War. But in 2022, the sign at the north end of the highway was modi­fied and no longer includes information about Petersen’s Medal of Honor.

And it’s likely that next year, the sign at the south end of the highway will be updated, but Pe­tersen’s Medal of Honor recogni­tion will not be listed on that sign, either.

For Steve Roberts, a former Topeka school administrator who was a key player in getting that stretch of U.S. 75 renamed in hon­or of Petersen, that’s a major point of concern.

“If you just have ‘Danny Pe­tersen Memorial Highway’ on the sign, people will drive by and say, who the heck was that?” Roberts said of the “Medal Of Honor 1970” designation on the signs. “It won’t be long before nobody remembers him, at least nobody new to the area.”

I agree with Roberts. The Danny Petersen signs should not be changed.

KDOT regional public informa­tion officer Kate Craft said that the Federal Highway Adminis­tration’s Manual of Uniform Traf­fic Control Devices (MUTCD) re­quires KDOT follow federal rules regarding memorial or dedication signs that are placed on federal highways, including the signs hon­oring Petersen, and that the Pe­tersen sign in Holton will be updat­ed in 2025 or later, but without the “Medal Of Honor 1970” designa­tion.

“National standards for signs change over time, and the new signs align with the latest regula­tions,” Craft said, referring to the most recent edition of MUTCD, published in 2023.

A review of previous editions of the MUTCD revealed that rules for “memorial or dedication signs,” such as those honoring Petersen, and banning the placement of “bio­graphical information” on such signs, were added to federal regu­lations with the 2009 edition.

During KDOT’s 2022 “con­struction season,” according to Craft, the green sign designating the highway in memory of Pe­tersen and his Medal of Honor was updated with a new brown sign that did not include the Medal of Honor information, keeping the sign in line with MUTCD’s decla­ration that neither “biographical in­formation” or “decorative or graphical elements, pictographs, logos or symbols” were allowed on the sign.

The sign honoring Petersen will be updated similarly in Holton, Craft said. I wonder if we could get federal officials to intervene, however? Contact your federal officials and tell them not to change the Danny Petersen signs.

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U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall

Russell Senat Office Bldg.

Suite 479A

Washington, D.C. 20002

Phone 2-2-224-4774

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U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran

Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.

Room 521

Washington, D.C. 20510

Phone 202-224-6521

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U.S. Rep. Tracey Mann

344 Cannon House Office Bldg.

Washington, D.C. 20515

Phone 202-225-2715

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