Renaming of Fruitville Road stretch in memory of Charlie Kirk fails to win approval
On April 14, thanks to action by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a stretch of U.S. 41 in Osprey formally will be designated the Dickey Betts Memorial Highway, in recognition of the Allman Brothers Band co-founder who lived in Osprey for decades before his 2024 death.
Rob Lewis, director of governmental relations for Sarasota County, notified the county commissioners of the news via email late in the afternoon of April 14, The Sarasota News Leader learned from a review of the commission’s public email folder.
However, in response to a question from Commissioner Teresa Mast, Lewis reported that the designation of a portion of Fruitville Road in recognition of the late Charlie Kirk, a nationally known political activist and co-founder of the conservative organization Turning Point USA, was not included in the bill that the governor signed.
In the fall of 2025, Mast had won her board colleagues’ support for the Kirk road designation.
Lewis explained that the members of the Florida Legislature included the Kirk request as part of a “broader renaming [initiative] in a separate measure.” Lewis added that he would be talking later on April 14 with a member of the Sarasota County Legislative Delegation and the Delegation’s staff, so Lewis would ask that the county request for the Kirk recognition “be refiled.”
In response to a News Leader inquiry about his response to Mast, Lewis wrote via email on April 20 that even though the Kirk “request did not move forward this Session … we will be working with our Delegation to request its consideration during the 2027 State Legislative Session.”
The legislative bill that Lewis referenced in his email to the commissioners included numerous “transportation facility designations,” as the News Leaderfound in a review of it. No. 3 on the list called for the Dickey Betts Memorial Highway designation. Altogether, 18 designations are included in that bill. All are to be implemented as of July 1, the bill points out.
On Oct. 8, 2025, the commissioners voted unanimously to adopt a resolution that called upon the Legislature to approve the naming of the section of U.S. 41 from North Creek to Blackburn Point Road in Betts’s memory.
The resolution pointed out, “Dickey Betts was a world-renowned American rock guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter … [who] was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Allman Brothers Band in 1995 …” It added that he twice was “recognized by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time in 2003 and 2011 …”
Former county Commissioner Jon Thaxton, director of policy and advocacy with the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, had broached the highway recognition idea to then-commission Chair Joe Neunder.
In an Aug. 27, 2-25 statement provided to the News Leader, at its request, Thaxton wrote, “Osprey was the home of Sarasota’s matriarch Bertha Palmer, and more recently the home of rock legend Dickey Betts. For many of us who were teens in the 1970s the Allman Brothers music was a part of the soundtrack of our lives. Many of their songs, including Ramblin Man, are still popular with youth today. Inspired by the lyric ‘I was born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus Rollin’ down Highway 41,’ I thought what could be more appropriate than to name that portion of US 41 that ran though Osprey, in front of Dickey’s home, in his honor.”
Subsequently, on Nov. 18, 2025, the commissioners voted unanimously to send a letter to state Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, seeking her help in securing the state designation of the section of Fruitville Road between the McIntosh Road and Coburn Road intersections as the Charlie Kirk Memorial Road.