The Illinois Tollway Board of Directors and Gov. Rod Blagojevich have renamed Interstate 88 the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway.

Blagojevich requested the name change the week after Reagan’s death on June 5, said Joelle McGinnis, press secretary for the Illinois Department of Transportation.

McGinnis said IDOT is working on new signage for the roadway, which until now was known as the East-West Tollway.

The tollway runs through DeKalb on its track from the Eisenhower Expressway to just outside the Quad Cities.

IDOT considered creating a profile silhouette of Ronald Reagan to commemorate the highway, McGinnis said. The commemoration has yet to be determined.

Reagan, the nation’s 40th president, was born in Tampico in 1911 and grew up in Dixon, which lies just north of the tollway. After pursuing a film career, Reagan sought political work in California before voters elected him president in 1980.

“President Reagan is one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States,” said Christopher Butler, executive director of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project. “His strong stand against communism resulted in the freedom of hundreds of millions of persons across the globe.”

Although Butler said his organization had little to do with the renaming, they are lobbying to rename a national highway in memorial and eventually land his likeness on the $10 bill.