Fayetteville : VA cemetery filling up
Posted on Monday, March 5, 2007
FAYETTEVILLE - A nonprofit group wants to raise $ 1. 7 million to expand Fayetteville National Cemetery.
The cemetery, south of Sixth Street on Government Avenue, has adequate burial space through 2012, and a planned expansion will create space though 2023.
The Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corp. wants to raise the $ 1. 7 million to buy land for veteran burials after 2023, said Roger McClain, the group's president. Members want to buy the land as soon as possible because land prices increase annually in Fayetteville, McClain said.
"I've always got hope,"said McClain, who was stationed in South Korea in the late 1960 s.. "All it's going to take is one rich benefactor, and around here there are lots and lots of people with that kind of money.
"We get donations. It's just not the big one."
The group is focused on buying nine tracts with houses that are north and west of the cemetery. Five properties are along Hill Street, four along Government Avenue.
The corporation owes about $ 78, 000 for lots it's purchasing along Hill Street, McClain said.
The group's effort, which started in 1984, made previous expansions possible, increasing the cemetery's size from 8 acres to 14 acres.
Mayor Dan Coody said he supports efforts to expand the cemetery further.
"I always hate losing houses, but I'd hate more hemming in the national cemetery,"Coody said.
There are 124 military cemeteries in the country. Many are like Fayetteville National Cemetery, where adjacent houses prevent expansion, said Michael Nacincik, a spokesman for the National Cemetery Administration.
Forty national cemeteries are closed, including Little Rock National Cemetery, which closed in 2001. Many, including the one in Little Rock, still accept spouses of those buried there.
Twenty others limit burials, Nacincik said.
The National Cemetery Administration, an arm of the federal Department of Veterans Affairs, wants open military cemeteries within 75 miles of 90 percent of veterans by 2009. The percentage is 84 percent now, Nacincik said.
A dozen new national cemeteries are being built in cities including Pittsburgh, Detroit, Atlanta and Jacksonville, Fla. Those will serve areas with large veteran populations and push the percentage closer to 90 percent, Nacincik said.
Besides Little Rock and Fayetteville, Arkansas has a national cemetery in Fort Smith. Officials want to expand that cemetery, as well.
A third cemetery, the Arkansas State Veterans Cemetery at Camp Robinson in North Little Rock, opened in 2001 in the days immediately after the Little Rock cemetery closed. Maintained by the state and built with federal money, it provides a place for veterans to be buried.
In Fort Smith, the Andrews Field baseball park opened in 1916, stands in the way of the 22-acre Fort Smith National Cemetery's expansion.
The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program argues that the field, with only its concrete bleachers remaining, is historically significant.
The Veterans Administration, meanwhile, has approved demolishing the field to expand the adjacent cemetery. The National Cemetery Administration contends that Andrews Field, which is on the southern edge of the cemetery, isn't eligible for historic listing because most of the stadium is gone.
Without the expansion, officials predict the cemetery will be full by 2010.
Fayetteville National Cemetery, opened in 1867, holds three Revolutionary War veterans and more than 7, 000 others.
Room remains for 570 full-casket burials. Those are the plots that are expected to be used up by 2012, said Tommy Monk, the cemetery's director.
A 2. 1-acre expansion to the north on donated land should be enough space though 2023, providing 850 to 1, 800 burial plots, depending on their size, Monk said.
The corporation's desire to purchase land comes as more veterans need burial. There were 688, 000 veteran deaths nationally last year. About 1, 900 die each day, of which about 1, 100 are World War II veterans.
In Fayetteville, about 140 veterans are buried in the military cemetery each year, Monk said. He thinks the nonprofit corporation will reach its goal of raising the $ 1. 7 million but wouldn't predict when.
"They are motivated,"Monk said. "They go anywhere anyone will listen and talk about it.
"They are veterans who are concerned about having a place for other veterans to be buried. It's good work."
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