A groundbreaking ceremony for a new Arizona Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery in Marana is set for Saturday.
The cemetery — expected to be completed and open in 2016 — will be the third veterans cemetery in the state.
“I think the cemetery will be a tremendous asset, not only for Marana, but the entire Southern Arizona region,” said town Mayor Ed Honea.
“I think we need to do as much as we can to honor and respect our veterans. I am really thrilled it is happening in Marana,” said Honea, who served in the Navy Seabees during the Vietnam War and is a member of the VFW Post 5990 in Marana.
“I expect a lot of VFW members to be there, and veterans throughout Pima County,” Honea said.
The Kai Family Foundation donated 35 acres of land for the cemetery to the Arizona Department of Veterans Services last year. Marana Councilman Herb Kai and his brother, John Kai Jr., oversaw the donation of land.
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The property has been in the Kai family since the mid-1940s. The brothers’ late parents, John Kai Sr. and Mamie Kai, were Chinese immigrants who built one of the largest cotton farms in the Avra Valley.
The state received a $7.6 million federal grant to build the cemetery, Honea said. The cemetery will be owned, operated and maintained by the state and federal governments.
The land for the cemetery has been graded and preliminary work has begun, said Honea. The town will pave and improve North Luckett Road to get to the cemetery through a $1 million grant from the Pima Association of Governments, he said.
The other two veterans cemeteries in the state are the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona, in Phoenix, and a state facility, the Southern Arizona Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery, in Sierra Vista.
There are between 120,000 and 200,000 veterans in the Tucson-area and Pinal County, Dave Hampton, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Veterans Services, said in an earlier story.
Any military veteran with better than a dishonorable discharge, and their spouse, may be buried at a military cemetery for free.
