New Castle  County has set 2:30 p.m. Sunday April 10, 2011 for a ceremonial sign unveiling in a long-awaited road dedication.

County Executive Paul G. Clark made the previously nameless road's new moniker official in January, designating the entrance to Talley Day Park and Brandywine Hundred Library as J. Harlan Day Drive.

The sign was installed Jan. 3, but its unveiling ceremony was delayed for warmer weather .

The ceremony, with comments from Day family members, will be held in the corner of the library parking lot closest to the green-and-white sign, county officials say. The event, free and open to the public, will be in the library if it rains.

The road naming was a longstanding aim of Day family members, Brandywine Hundred residents and leaders including County Councilman Bob Weiner and Jonathan Husband in the county's Department of Special Services.

Road namesake Joseph Harlan Day sold the county 20 acres for the park complex in 1975. The county later bought 35 more acres from another prominent Brandywine Hundred farming family, the Talleys.

The idea of naming the road for Day was proposed years before his death in 1981.

The proposal resurfaced in 2008, after Weiner and James Hanby Sr. hosted a Brandywine Hundred oral history forum, featuring Day's son as one of the honored speaker-guests.

John William Day Sr. -- who was born in 1928 and grew up in a house that stood where the soccer  fields are now -- said after the January naming he was pleased it finally happened.

He said it also would have pleased his father, who lived the rest of his life at the site in a $1-a-year lease-back he set up.

Their family has been a Brandywine Hundred mainstay since 1786, when Francis Day bought more than 100 acres to farm from Shellpot Creek to what is now Heatherbrook.

Clark called the road naming "a way to recognize a unique piece of New Castle  County history." He acted on it quickly after taking office -- rising from County Council president after County Executive Chris Coons was elected to the U.S. Senate -- because of "numerous requests from Day relatives and community members."

"It's such a simple and deserving request that it's a shame it took so long to do," he said.

Despite its delay, Weiner calls the name "a fitting honor."

Write to robin brown at The News Journal, Box 15505, Wilmington, DE 19850; fax 324-5509; call 324-2856; or e-mail rbrown@delawareonline.com.