Honor veterans this Christmas season
Pleasant Forest Cemetery, located along Concord Road, will kick off efforts in Farragut with a ceremony 10 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 13, at Union Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Shortly after the ceremony, volunteers will place wreaths on more than 275 veterans’ graves at Pleasant Forest, Grigsby Chapel, Union Cumberland Presbyterian and Virtue Church cemeteries.
There also will be a noon ceremony at the main veteran cemeteries in Knoxville.
“We have ordered wreaths for all the veterans, said David Stinton, president of the Pleasant Forest Cemetery Board.
“The cost is $17 per wreath, and we have received donations for about 225 of the wreaths.
“We are looking for donors to buy another 50 wreaths,” he said. Donations made using the cemetery’s QR code go toward wreaths for the Farragut Cemeteries.
“Pleasant Forest has been putting flags on all the Veteran’s graves since way before I started volunteering at Pleasant Forest in 2008,” Stinton said.
“We have developed a process to recruit volunteers to help us put out the flags, so it wasn’t too hard and it didn’t take too long to put out the flags,” he said. “Since we had the process of putting out flags, it was not hard to do flags in May and Christmas wreaths in December.
“The only change was having a more formal event with a Color Guard to put out the flag, finding someone to sing the National Anthem, a minister to open with a prayer and a guest speaker,” he said.
“It makes very good sense for Pleasant Forest to host the event because Pleasant is much larger than Grigsby Chapel, Union Cumberland Presbyterian and Virtue Church cemeteries,” Stinton said. “Of the 275 veteran’s that are being honored, 190 are buried at Pleasant Forest.
“Pleasant Forest also has a cemetery board with 12 people who help maintain the cemetery,” he said. “We also have numerous church friends that help, plus a couple Scout Troops that sometimes help with flags.
“The Town of Farragut and Pleasant Forest have worked together on a couple of events in the last five or six years,” Stinton said. “We held the first Living History Event about six years ago, where the cemetery board identified about 12 individuals that
are buried at Pleasant Forest that
made significant contributions to the local area.
“People from the Town of Farragut and Pleasant Forest worked together to develop a one-page script for each individual,” he recalled. “The Town then found volunteers to stand by the graves and rented costumes for the actors to wear.
“We developed a great collaboration doing these events and made some
new friends,” Stinton said. “A second Living History event was held recently.
“I think the people of Farragut should know a lot more about the history of the area and the contributions made by people that lived in the area,” he said. “Likewise, we need to be thankful for the local veterans’ service and the freedoms that we enjoy because of their efforts.”
