BIRDEYE -- A surprise can add zest to any road trip. That was true recently during a drive on Crowley's Ridge, the distinctive geological feature that rises above the Arkansas Delta's flat landscape.
Along Arkansas 163, one of several highways that makes up scenic Crowley's Ridge Parkway, a sign announced a cemetery. But it was not just another of the many roadside graveyards scattered across rural Arkansas.
This was Arkansas State Veterans Cemetery at Birdeye, opened in 2012 in a 100-acre countryside setting as only the second such military burial ground in the Natural State.
It came into being mainly because the original 82-acre Arkansas State Veterans Cemetery in North Little Rock, dedicated 11 years earlier, was filling up with vets of World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the more recent Middle East conflicts.
(Arkansas also has three federally managed national cemeteries for veterans, in Little Rock, Fort Smith and Fayetteville. Confederate dead of the Civil War rest in other sites around the state, including Fayetteville, Little Rock and Camp Nelson near Cabot.)
The most striking feature of the Birdeye cemetery is the architecture of the welcome center and the outdoor committal shelter, where burial services are held. The designs by Little Rock-based Fennell Purifoy Architects won an award from the American Institute of Architects' Arkansas chapter.
The welcome center manages to be solemn and soaring. As the cemetery's website describes it, the building "is organized around a central entrance canopy that opens up, welcoming the visitors into the space in a respectful way.
"The details begin to increase throughout the building, making it a livelier place as you reach the back. The back facade opens up for a circular view of the cemetery, allowing visitors to celebrate the life of the soldiers."
The committal shelter, on the cemetery's southeastern edge, "is a quiet, dignified, covered pavilion set in the terrain with trees and vegetation. It is intended to provide a temporary shelter for an interment service to take place in a solemn manner."
Eligible for burial here are most military veterans who have been discharged under conditions other than dishonorable, as well as those who have died on active duty. Also eligible are spouses and unmarried children of veterans.
So far, a couple of hundred headstones stand in clusters on the greensward, along with a few dozen columbarium niches filled with cremains. The markers are identically shaped with curved tops. Some bear brief personal messages, including a number for men who saw combat.
For 91-year-old Bob McGough, a World War II Army aviation cadet who eventually retired as an Air Force lieutenant colonel, the inscription notes that he was a prisoner of war and received a Purple Heart. He is lauded as "loving husband, father, paw paw."
Warrant Officer Gayle Harry Cox, who died last year at age 58, flew helicopters in Vietnam and the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War. His inscription resonates with the valor that so many of these dead brought to their service: "Via God and his Chinook, he left not one behind."
Weekend visits won't interrupt services, as all interments are held on weekdays.
Arkansas State Veterans Cemetery at Birdeye is located along Arkansas 163 in Cross County, about midway between Wynne and Harrisburg. For more information, call (870) 588-4608 or visit veterans.arkansas.gov/birdeye.
Style on 06/09/2015