Saturday morning is the time to join the Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation

The meeting will be at 10:30 a.m. at the American Legion Building on Curtis Avenue, just a short way north of East 15th Street. That means north of a stoplight. Please bring your checkbook. All donations to the RNCIC are tax deductible. At least pay the low membership fee. You can consider a larger gift later. But you don't have to join to attend. Just be interested in the future of our only local National Shrine.
The Fayetteville National Cemetery is at 700 Government Avenue, just off Martin Luther King Boulevard but the facility is running out of space. Capacity will be reached by 2023. To preserve the neighborhood and maintain the solemnity of the cemetery, the best space for our fallen is to the east where the Washington County Livestock Auction now stands. The sale barn and the more than 10 acres where it stands are for sale. A residential housing company, Campus Crest Development LLC of North Carolina has made an offer to purchase the sale-barn property in order to develop student housing space for University of Arkansas students. This offer has been accepted by Mr. Billy Bartholomew, owner of the sale-barn property, subject to rezoning of 8.87 acres of the parcel from "Light Industrial" to "Downtown General."
The proposed rezoning will be up before the City Council for a final decision on July 21

Donations for property acquisition for the National Cemetery may be mailed to
Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation
Attn: Harold Crivello, Treasurer
P.O. Box 4221
Fayetteville, Arkansas 72702

Regardless of the outcome of the rezoning, the RNCIC will still need money to acquire property for enlargement of the cemetery. Although the Department of Veterans' Affairs' policy does allow using its money to buy land for expansion of national cemeteries, a few exceptions have occurred in recent years when a state's congressional delegation got behind the effort.
Representative John Boozeman and Senator Blanche Lincoln both have offered support for the fund-raising effort and the possibility of an earmark on a congressional bill is alive.
Regardless of whether federal money is provided, the RNCIC must continue to raise money.
Land that the RNCIC bought and donated to the cemetery for previous enlargement has had to be cleared of houses and such before the cemetery officials could begin developing it. The RNCIC has provided the money for that work, also.

Please use the link below to learn more about
RNCIC
http://www.geocities.com/regncic/

or scroll down the right side of the page to the Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation liive link in the link list.