Signs designating a stretch of Sumner County highway in honor of conservative activist Charlie Kirk are coming down, after a group of Vietnam veterans pushed back on where they were placed.
The Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway markers went up in June along State Route 386, a road that already carries a second name, Vietnam Veterans Boulevard. That stretch honors 25 Sumner County service members who died in the Vietnam War, and local veterans say no one asked them before Kirk’s name was added to it.
Kirk, 31, was shot and killed in September 2025 while speaking at a university event in Utah.
Sumner County Commissioner Jeremy Mansfield said many of the county’s Vietnam veterans were angry and frustrated to see another memorial designation layered onto a road already dedicated to their fallen fellow service members. He said the veterans were never consulted before the signs went up.
Mansfield said state Rep. Johnny Garrett had chosen the original location. That decision is now being reversed, and the Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway designation will instead move to Long Hollow Pike in Goodlettsville.
This isn’t the first time a Sumner County road was floated for the honor. An earlier proposed location was considered but never went through.
Mansfield thanked the veterans who spoke up, along with Garrett and the city of Goodlettsville, for helping get the signs relocated. He said the new site will honor Kirk “without taking anything away from those we already promised to remember.”