Volunteers made their way to four local cemeteries this past Saturday to help Plant City honor veterans as they placed nearly 1,300 flags at the graves of veterans.
In their third year holding the event, Plant City Parks & Recreation saw dozens of volunteers show up to assist, including Chief James Bradford and fellow members of the Plant City Police Department, city commissioners, Durant High School ROTC Cadets and several members of the community.
“This is the third year that we’ve done it,” Plant City cemetery superintendent Jeff Black said. “I’ve been here since November of 2019, we started the event in 2020. I think we had 23 people the first year and today we had about 75. The first year Durant ROTC came out they just helped but this year they’re helping us run the event, so they’re passing out flags and guiding folks to the headstones, stuff like that. Commissioner Jason Jones was here and it was nice to see that support, Chief Bradford and a bunch of the detectives. It’s morphing into what we hoped that it would be.”
After serving eight years with the United States Navy, later working with Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C., West Point Cemetery in New York and Fort Jackson National Cemetery in South Carolina, cemetery supervisor Jeff Black joined Plant City in 2019 before orchestrating the event for the first time the following year.
“I’m a veteran, my wife also just retired from the army after 20 years and I got my start in national cemeteries at Arlington, the West Point Cemetery, the V.A. Cemetery, so this is important to me,” Black said. “Especially seeing all of the children out here, that’s why we do it. If it was just children I’d still be happy because I think for them to have that opportunity to recognize and understand the sacrifices that the people around them have made for our country is important and it shows that it’s important to their parents as well because they’re here. So it’s really neat to see as many kids out here as there are.”
The event comes one week before Veteran’s Day as Plant City continues to honor those who have served in the United States’ Armed Forces, but it’s also just one facet of how Black — along with foreman Leo Carrizales — has greatly impacted cemetery operations since joining the city as superintendent.
“Once I took over the department, cemeteries was something that I had minimal knowledge in,” director of Parks & Recreation Julie Garretson said. “So the first couple of months here I got with Jeff and just told him that he needed to give me a crash course in cemetery operations. Since then that’s changed my entire outlook of the cemeteries and all that these guys have to do as far as our field guys, our foreman, Jeff as our superintendent. With his experience coming from Arlington National Cemetery, that was kind of a no-brainer for the city as an asset to the team. The pride that he takes into the cemetery and the progress that he’s made over the past three years that he’s been here is night and day. He’s extremely enthusiastic but not just focused on conserving and protecting what we currently have but also expanding and innovating in ways that no other municipality in the area are doing. So we’re super fortunate to have someone so well-versed in cemetery operations that can help me as the director to see the direction that we need to go.”