Topeka ? A legislator wants to allow the hometowns of the state’s governors to put up special highway signs, something he said would preserve Kansas heritage.

Sen. Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, is sponsoring the proposed “Governors of Kansas Hometown Heritage Act.” He has filed a bill for introduction when the 2004 Legislature convenes Jan. 12.

“We’ve never really done anything that tells about the communities that nurtured and produced our governors,” he said this week.

The bill would require the secretary of transportation to develop a special highway sign for governors’ hometowns, consulting with the secretary of commerce, the Kansas State Historical Society, the Arts Commission and the Humanities Council. Each sign would carry a logo chosen in a contest.

A community would have to ask for the signs, and private gifts would pay for the signs, not the state.

Also, a governor’s hometown would be the community in which he or she lived when first elected.

Schmidt said he hit upon the idea while waiting in the reception area of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ office for a meeting with her. The office features two montages of gubernatorial portraits.

“It struck me how many of them were from southeast Kansas and how many of them were from rural communities,” Schmidt said.

Thirty communities have been hometowns to the state’s 44 governors. The most, four, have come from Wichita, but eight communities — including Lawrence — can claim more than one chief executive.

Those towns include Independence, home to Alf Landon, the 1936 Republican presidential nominee, and the less well-known Lyman Humphrey, who served as governor in 1889-93.