Published: November 04, 2009 11:33 pm      

Breaking ground on vets cemetery

This morning state and local officials will dig into the Mississippi clay of Newton County with gold-colored shovels marking the official groundbreaking for the "Arlington of the South," the Mississippi Veteran's Memorial Cemetery.

The ceremony, which will be held at the 75-acre site between Hickory and Newton on Highway 80, will over the next several years be converted from rolling grazing land for cows to a place of honor for military veterans. The cemetery will be operated by the Mississippi Veteran's Affairs Board. The groundbreaking will mark the official start of construction for the cemetery and administrative buildings during the first of three construction phases.

Special speakers for the ceremony will be Mississippi Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, Mississippi State University President Dr. Mark Keenum, and Tom Paquelet, from the United States Secretary of Veteran's Affairs in Washington, D.C.

Randy Reeves, the deputy director of the Mississippi Veteran's Affairs Board, and past Mississippi Veteran's Memorial Cemetery director, said in a press release that in just over three years the cemetery has gone from just talk to a tangible reality. Reeves said the original bill authorizing the cemetery was actually passed in the Mississippi Legislature in 2004. In 2007, the Legislature passed another bill authorizing $700,000 to cover the cost of planning and development.

Reeves said the next milestone was the selection of the cemetery site. In 2007, another bill was passed authorizing the transfer of 75 acres of rolling pasture land, formerly part of the Mississippi State Coastal Plains Experiment Station, from Mississippi State University to the State Veterans Affairs Board to be used, specifically, for the veterans cemetery.

According to reports, construction and outfitting of the cemetery will be paid for with a $6.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs State Cemetery Grants Program. Once completed, expected in the spring of 2011, the cemetery will be maintained and operated by the Mississippi Veterans Affairs Board.

The complete facility will be built over three phases with the first phase (current construction) designed to accommodate approximately 5,000 burial sites and will include all administrative and maintenance buildings and other structures. Successive phases will be funded and built to accommodate additional burials, as needed, over an estimated 30 year period.

"Many close to the project have dubbed it as "Arlington of the South," said Reeves in the release. "One fact is clear; this will be a place where America's heroes will be

honored forever."

The public is invited to attend the ceremony, which begins at 10 a.m. next to the Mississippi State Coastal Plains Experiment Station north of Hickory.