LOUISVILLE, Ky. — They’re hard to miss driving through Louisville: giant photo murals that honor local heroes who’ve made a significant impact and name for themselves.

The Hometown Heroes program behind the banners was discontinued in 2017, but now it’s coming back.

In June, Louisville’s first Hometown Heroes banner, depicting “The Greatest” Muhammad Ali, was replaced with a new mural. The old one was installed 20 years ago and had become sun faded and worn.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the program’s inception in 2002, several of the city’s more faded murals will also be replaced with new ones printed with a newer type of ink that organizers say will hold up better.

“It kind of stalled due to lack of buildings, and I just thought it ran its course,” said Greater Louisville Pride Foundation President Mike Sheehy, referring to 2017. “So we kind of put it on the shelf, and then, recently, we started getting some questions on, ‘Where is it?’ ‘Why don’t y’all bring it back?’”

Sheehy is a native Louisvillian who works in the advertising industry. He helped come up with the idea of honoring Ali with the original banner and said he never intended for there to be more than one.

“That was just the plan, you know, just to put Muhammad Ali up where everybody coming through the city could see his photograph. But it quickly escalated, and we started getting calls, and we created a board of directors, an advisory board,” Sheehy explained.

Over the years, the Greater Louisville Pride Foundation, which was created out of the idea, took nominations for the 31 murals that now hang around the metro area.

“The Alis and the Diane Sawyers and the Colonel—those are all pretty easy, but some of the lesser known, you know, I think it’s neat for the city to learn about them,” Sheehy said.

Now, as part of Hometown Heroes 2.0, Sheehy and the rest of the group want people to submit their ideas for some fresh faces.

“It’s nice to see a kind of new generation of heroes that are being mentioned that weren’t around in 2002,” he said.

Nominations will be judged strictly. Anyone hanging on one of the banners has to have given back to the Louisville community while also making significant contributions far beyond Louisville’s city limits.

Once a nomination is approved, it’s up to the group that nominated the person to fundraise the thousands of dollars it will cost to print and hang the banner. Prices vary depending on size and location.

Meanwhile, Sheehy is looking for companies and building owners to volunteer additional spaces on which the banners can hang.

“We’ve had such an outpouring of support and excitement about the 2.0 version coming, so we hope that momentum carries us through,” Sheehy said.

The Greater Louisville Pride Foundation invites people to learn more about the program on its website. Anyone wanting to nominate a new hero can do so by emailing contact@louheroes.org.