Cemetery for Aggies about to open

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) - The city of College Station is putting the finishing touches on an eternal resting place for folks who are really devoted to Texas A&M University.

The new Memorial Cemetery of College Station, set to open in a few weeks, has reserved a special section for Aggies and their supporters who want to be close - forever - to the sprawling campus and be with like-minded Aggies after they die.

"We're a weird lot, aren't we?" laughs Ross Albrecht, A&M class of 1984, urban landscape manager for the city and marketing supervisor for the cemetery. "There's a lot of school pride."

A few of the nation's universities - Notre Dame, Iowa State, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and Virginia among them - have had school-affiliated cemeteries for nearly two centuries, but this one is believed to be unique in Texas.

"I think this is another opportunity for former students to be someplace close to campus when they're gone," Albrecht said. "It's kind of a changing world. So many people change jobs and are all over.

"Where is home? It's quite possible you spent the most time across the street right there," he said, nodding toward the campus. "Or had the most fun, or both.

"We're trying to provide a space for that."

To be exact, 2,900 spaces. That's the first phase of what eventually will be a 57-acre cemetery, with roughly one-third of it dedicated to A&M. The cemetery is succeeding an existing 60-year-old city cemetery that's almost completely sold out.

The school has no financial stake in the $10 million project, but is allowing the city to use the school logo and a few other A&M-trademarked items as part of a licensing agreement, university spokesman Lane Stephenson said.

Albrecht said school officials wanted to be certain use of the university symbols was correct and respectful.

The cemetery section, called the Aggie Field of Honor, is seen as a new element of tradition at the tradition-rich school where the Corps of Cadets has cared since the 1940s for a cemetery outside Kyle Field, the A&M football stadium, containing several remains of Reveille, the school's dog mascots.

And while the idea of an Aggie cemetery for people has been kicked around for decades, it was stymied by financial and management concerns over the years. The need for a new city cemetery paved the way.

The new municipal cemetery, open to Aggies and non-Aggies alike, is marked by a limestone-like concrete twin-column "Spirit Gate" at the corner of the site and anchors the A&M section. The columns also frame a circular concrete tilted "aTm" school logo that forms a kind of mini-amphitheater where the walls will include Aggie-maroon markers engraved with people's names.

Beyond the stone columns and above the logo, Kyle Field looms in the distance a mile or so away, creating a "visual gateway" to the football stadium. The stadium view was one of the requirements in the cemetery master plan.

"The concept is that the Spirit of Aggieland travels in a ceremonial way from the campus to the Aggie Field of Honor through this final gateway," according to promotional material the city gives to prospective cemetery tenants.

The non-Aggie sections have similar twin-column anchors but don't include the Texas A&M accoutrements.

The place is supposed to be open for burials beginning in mid-July. Plot sales began last year and as of early May about 350 had been sold. The cemetery also will have walls known as columbaria, which accommodate cremated remains. Each of those vaults in the wall will be marked by dark red granite markers. About 40 of those already have been sold, Albrecht said.

A standard 4-foot-by-9-foot gravesite costs $2,000 in the Aggie area, $950 in the regular municipal section. A 1-cubic-foot columbarium space goes for $1,200 in the Field of Honor and $600 in a similar section for people who would prefer to not be associated with A&M.

City officials expect the project to eventually pay for itself over the next several generations before it's sold out and necessitates the need for another cemetery.

"Everybody needs to have a place to go," said Weldon Kruger, a retired petroleum engineer and 1953 A&M graduate who's bought a plot for himself and his wife. "What a better place to be buried than with friends and people that love this university.

"It was a no-brainer for me."

Texas A&M has an estimated half-million former students and their spouses and the city is trying to make them aware of the cemetery in newspaper and magazine ads and through Aggie alumni groups spreading the word around the nation and the world.

Albrecht said he gets several calls a week about the project. Some people were eager to buy immediately, some wanted to wait until dirt started moving and others preferred to wait until it's completed. The scheduled opening in a few weeks is later than had been anticipated.

"There's been some things we needed to work through," Albrecht said. "But we want it to be very well done. And when you're talking about having something in honor of people, you want it done right. There's not a construction project out there that doesn't go as fast as you would like."

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By MICHAEL GRACZYK

Associated Press Writer

On the Net:

Aggie Field of Honor http://fieldofhonor.cstx.gov/

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)