There is a new director at Fayetteville National Cemetery, and Arkansas native Ted Travers is starting just in time for one of the busiest holidays for the cemetery.
Travers was born and raised in Cedarville, Arkansas, but his career in the military had him moving often. After serving in the Army for a number of years, he retired as a sergeant first class.
He was a director at Eagle Point National Cemetery in Oregon before moving back to his home state.
On Friday, Travers watched as nearly 100 volunteers came to his cemetery to place flags on over 7,000 tombstones of veterans.
“It does my heart good being retired military to see the number of people that have shown up to support those that came before us, that are buried on these hallowed grounds," Travers said.
Even though he has only been on the job a week, he said there is one problem the staff is trying to fix as soon as possible.
"We're running out of space," Travers said.
Earlier in 2014, the cemetery had land donated by the Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation, a nonprofit that has helped to triple the size of the cemetery over the last 30 years.
"The additional land adds 1,200 grave sites, and at our current burial rate, it’ll take the cemetery another 20-25 years to fill that," he said.
Aside from getting right down to business, Travers said he is looking forward to having people visit the Fayetteville National Cemetery on Monday for the Memorial Day ceremony.
The ceremony is open to the public and will begin at 10 a.m.