ARGILLITE —
Six years in the making, the new veterans’ cemetery in Greenup County is a fitting memorial to Kentucky’s service members, said state and local officials who assembled for a dedication ceremony Friday.
“The chapel here on the knoll looks exactly as I’d envisioned it in my mind’s eye,” said state Rep. Tanya Pullin (D-South Shore).
“It’s hard to believe that less than a year ago this was just fields,” said Gov. Steve Beshear, who visited the site last September for a groundbreaking ceremony. “Come next year, it will become hallowed ground ... It will become the final resting place for Kentucky veterans.”
The 78-acre Kentucky Veterans Cemetery Northeast, built with $6.1 million from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, will begin accepting burials and interments in October. It eventually will have 25,000 graves.
With its grassy burial areas, columbarium for cremation remains and open-air chapel for services, the cemetery is a place of peace and dignity for veterans and their families, “befitting our debt to them,” Beshear said.
It is part of a goal to build enough veterans cemeteries that there will be one within 75 miles of every Kentuckian. The Greenup cemetery is the fourth and the state is seeking land now for a fifth in Leslie County.
Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs Commissioner Ken Lucas remarked that the dedication took place the day preceding the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “It is fitting and proper and a bit ironic that we are here today to honor men and women who have given so much, even the ultimate sacrifice,” he said.
Lucas introduced Pullin as “the mother of this cemetery.” Pullin is largely credited for shepherding the project along from inception to completion and has made countless trips to the site.
“We cannot dedicate this cemetery with our words,” Pullin said, her voice shaking. “Our words are too meager. Through your service through the years, you have dedicated this cemetery.”
Pullin said the cemetery at the southern end of the Industrial Parkway and the Greenup County War Memorial near its northern terminus serve as visual “bookends” to the highway and will be a source of pride for years to come.
She produced a glass jar of sand from Omaha Beach, one of the hard-won beachheads of the World War II D-Day invasion, and poured it onto the grass to commemorate veterans of that conflict.
The cemetery is located adjacent to the EastPark industrial park. The entrance is marked by an 800-pound gold-plated cast-iron eagle on a pedestal.
MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2652.
Local News
Related Photos
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State Rep. Tanya Pullin pours sand from the beach at Normandy onto the grounds of the new veterans' cemetery during the dedication Friday morning. John Flavell / The Independent
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Veterans’ cemetery a place ‘befitting our debt to them’
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