Georgia's largest state veterans cemetery is expected to break ground in Augusta as early as November.
About 200 military veterans, public officials and other stakeholders applauded new announcements about the cemetery in a gathering Wednesday at the Augusta Marriott at the Convention Center.
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"At one point in time in our country's history, we did not openly celebrate or recognize the history of our service members," Augusta Commissioner Don Clark said, who for years joined former Augusta Mayor Bob Young in advocating for the burial ground's construction. "That's not today."
More than 53,000 veterans live in the Augusta metropolitan area that includes Aiken and Edgefield counties in South Carolina, according to census records. That's more than 11% of the area's population.
The Augusta Chronicle first reported exclusively July 28 that subcontractors had until Aug. 3 to submit bids to help construct the first phase of the Georgia Veterans Memorial Cemetery at 3780 Byrd Rd.
The cemetery will be built on state-owned land next to the Gracewood campus of East Central Georgia Regional Hospital off Tobacco Road.
Site plans for the cemetery show the layout for the first 4,100 burials in conventional graves, in-ground cremated remains, preplaced crypts, memorial-wall plaques and a columbarium, an above-ground structure where cremains are interred.
When retired U.S. Air Force Col. Patricia Ross became commissioner of the Georgia Department of Veterans Services in 2021, she was told that Augusta's cemetery proposal was a nonstarter "because we just weren't high enough on the priority list," she said Wednesday. On a list of 30 similar projects, Augusta's sat for years at No. 30.
But helping shepherd the project through a sluggish government bureaucracy helped Ross learn that "sometimes dreams take a long time to happen, and just because it's taking a long time doesn't make them any less worthwhile," she said.
While state and federal funds have been appropriated to bankroll the cemetery project, architectural enhancements to the project will require private funding. That includes a carillon, a tower with chromatically tuned bells that can be played with a musical keyboard.
People can donate online at csraveteranscemetery.org to the nonprofit CSRA Veterans Cemetery Fund, overseen by an eight-member board of directors chaired by cybersecurity consultant and retired U.S. Army Col. Danielle Gonzalez.
The other two Georgia Veterans Memorial Cemeteries are in Milledgeville, completed in 2001, and in Glennville, completed in 2007.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Long-awaited veterans cemetery in Augusta nears construction start