Ronald Reagan vs. Col. Sanders: Ky. bridge name game gets competitive

Yum Brands, the owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken, is pushing hard to name a new bridge leading Interstate 65 drivers over the Ohio River after Col. Harland Sanders, the white-haired, white-suited face of the franchise.

But the good colonel has some competition — Ronald Reagan.

A lawmaker in the state would rather see the former president receive the naming honor for the newly proposed bridge development, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported. And it’s not clear yet which side will win.

The Louisville-based Yum Brands, which also owns Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, recently tweeted a picture of KFC founder Col. Sanders superimposed over a section of the bridge, the Courier-Journal reported. It didn’t take long for hundreds of other posts using the same hashtag, #ColonelBridge, to appear on Twitter and Facebook.

“I only want it named #ColonelBridge if that lovely image of Col. Sanders shows up in the sky, waving to me and saying ’Welcome to Kentucky,’” Bryan Baise, a philosophy professor at Boyce College, told the Courier-Journal.

But the Col. Sanders name is hardly a done deal. State Sen. Dan Seum introduced a measure earlier this year directing the Transportation Cabinet to call the new bridge the Ronald W. Reagan Memorial bridge, the newspaper reported.

That resolution has seen some movement. It was sent to the transportation committee in early February and awaits legislators’ return to session.