Kearney Cemetery Kiosk
The City of Kearney installed a kiosk information system that is located just inside the front gates under the gazebo. The kiosk assists people in finding graves and providing some information about those interred in the City of Kearney Cemetery. The kiosk allows you to print a map with the area of the deceased internment highlighted.
Cemetery Staff are able to load an obituary with a picture on the kiosk for a fee of $10. There is a $15 charge for Cemetery Staff to take a picture of the monument and put that on the kiosk.
Please call Steve Baye, Cemetery Supervisor, at (308) 233-3244 for more information.
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Wayfinding kiosk deployed at Missouri cemetery
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The Machpelah Cemetery Memorial Park and Memory Gardens in Lexington, Mo., has installed a computer kiosk that allows visitors to locate any of the 11,900 graves in the park, according to an article in Lexington News.
Windy Prairie Systems designed and installed the kiosk, which features customized mapping, photos and directions to the graves, said Steve Richman, a co-owner of the Nebraska-based company.
According to Don Coen of the cemetery association, the kiosk cost $20,300. It will be housed in a 16-foot-by-10-foot enclosure and available during cemetery hours.
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Electronic cemetery directory in operation
A multi-year effort to provide a convenient way for visitors to Chadron’s Greenwood Cemetery to find the burial plot of their loved ones came to fruition recently, just in time for the Memorial Day holiday.
The Windy Prairie Systems kiosk installed at Greenwood Cemetery in mid-May features a touch screen directory listing all of the more than 6,000 burials at Greenwood and the Catholic Calvary Cemetery on 10th and Maple Streets. A guide to using the system is displayed on the screen, and provided by a recorded voice as well.
The system is easily searchable by name, and the location of the plot is displayed on a map. Driving instructions to Calvary Cemetery from Greenwood are also provided on the screen.
For most entries, the display shows only the person’s name and the location of the burial plot, but families have the option of including a photo, obituary or even video of the deceased. Besides having the obituary displayed as text, the machine will read it aloud.
Basic information about the deceased will be included in the directory at no charge, and the system will be updated every six months, said Scott Schremmer, city parks department head. There is a charge for including photos, obituary information and videos or slide shows. Local funeral homes will provide information about the service to families.
The installation of the nearly $20,000 electronic directory was spearheaded by a committee of local residents, who started raising money for the project in 2008.
The kiosk committee-Junice Dagen, Sharon Rickenbach, Betty Stahl and Fayne Larson- raised about half of the project’s cost from donations and fundraisers, said Dagen. The rest of the money came from Chadron’s LB840 community development funds, Dagen said.
The initial push for an easily accessible guide to the cemetery came in part because members of the American Legion Auxiliary and VFW Auxiliary didn’t have a reliable, permanent system of tracking the graves of military veterans, a June, 2008 story from The Chadron Record reported. Members of the organizations decorate the graves of veterans on holidays such as Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day and were concerned that no permanent, easily accessible record of the graves’ locations was available.
The committee received donations from a number of individuals and groups and sold paving stones, which will be placed alongside the cement walkway leading to the kiosk. Cement for the walkway was donated by Chadron Concrete.
At present the kiosk itself is uncovered but plans are underway to provide a shelter over the device, said Schremmer.
he kiosk committee is continuing its fundraising to pay the for the shelter and other upgrades, said Dagen. During Fur Trade Days the group will host Greenwood Cemetery tours featuring local residents portraying historical characters who are buried in the cemetery.
The historical figures include attorney Albert W. Crites, outlaw George ‘Flat Nose’ Curry, rancher Charles F. Coffee Sr.; and early day business people Peter B. Nelson, Mary E. Smith and Benjamin Lowenthal.
The tours will cost $7.50, with proceeds to benefit improvements and maintenance of the kiosk.
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Eagle Scout Project brings Cemetery Memorial
In 2011, the Cemetery added a Kiosk System, which is housed next to the Chapel in a shelter built through an Eagle Scout Project of Seth Stramel. This system has many options allowing visitors to locate their loved ones and view obituaries that have been placed on the system. There is also a tribute to Unborn Children, a memorial was built and dedicated by Eagle Scout David Russell in the cemetery in 2001. The memorial is a place for families to reflect and leave memorials in memory of their unborn child(ren). Another memorial bench sets at the Veterans of War site complete in 2003 by Jacob Erickson for an Eagle Scout project.
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