GREENUP, Ky. — About 250 people turned out for the groundbreaking ceremony for a military cemetery to be built in Greenup County at the southern end of the Industrial Parkway, some 14 miles south of Greenup.

And there was hardly a dry eye in the crowd as state Rep. Tanya Pullin, D-South Shore, her voice breaking with emotion, finished her impassioned remarks about the men and women who have answered the call to help keep America free.

“Does the flag still wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave? Yes! This cemetery answers. The story of those who fought at Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, Korea, Vietnam — the more than 80 Kentuckians who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan — will never be forgotten,” she said. “Their stories will be written in the white stones that will be here. Their stories will be told here forever. We will never forget those who will lie here. They will be remembered by generations to come, forever and forever.”

Pullin, who began in 2003 pushing for the Kentucky Veterans Cemetery North East to be built in Greenup County, was among the speakers at the groundbreaking Friday morning.

Keynote speaker Gov. Steven Beshear, as well as state Sen. Robin Webb, D-Grayson, both continued Pullin’s theme of veterans’ pride.

“The field you see before you will soon be hallowed ground,” the governor said.

Webb, whose father, the late Dr. Robert Webb, served in World War II, said she took great pride in that her first official act representing Greenup County in the Senate came in helping to dedicate the cemetery.

“Tomorrow (Saturday) is a day set aside to remember our MIAs and POWs. So we remember and honor them as we dedicate this ground those those who not only served, but to some who gave all,” Web said.

She had been a state representative for 11 years serving the people of Carter and Lewis counties before she won a special election last month to move into the 18th District Senate seat vacated by Charlie Borders.

As state senator, she represents Carter, Lewis, Greenup, Mason, Robertson and Bracken counties.

The first phase of the cemetery will offer 25,000 gravesites for veterans and their eligible family members. Coal man and road builder Larry Addington, of Addington Enterprises of Boyd County, donated the 77 acres of land the cemetery will be built on.

The heavy equipment of Roberts Construction, the general contractor, stood by to begin development of the facility.

Frank Salvas Sr., director of the State Cemetery Grants Service for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, presented Beshear and other office holders with a check for a construction grant of $6.1 million.

The first phase of the cemetery will offer 25,000 gravesites for veterans and their eligible family members. Veterans from a 75-mile radius in Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio will qualify to be buried there if their families so choose.

Pullin said there are 77,000 veterans living in that area.

“That’s a remarkable figure when you consider that there are no military installations nearby,” she said.

She had favored a site closer to the Greenup County War Memorial, located between Wurtland and Greenup on the northern end of the Industrial Parkway. The site dedicated Friday is on the southern end of the parkway, 14 miles south of the memorial.

“But then I reconsidered and thought that this is the best spot for it after all,” Pullin said. “It’s right where people enter the county from Interstate 64. The military cemetery and the memorial serve as our bookends.”

The cemetery is in a triangle of land where Greenup, Boyd and Carter counties come together.

G. SAM PIATT can be reached at (740) 353-3101, ext. 236.