LAKE FOREST : Resident Voted Head of Cemetery Board

Resident Vernon McKenny has been elected chairman of the Orange County Cemetery District Board of Trustees.

The one-year appointment is McKenny’s first as head of the board, which oversees county cemeteries in Anaheim, Lake Forest, Garden Grove and Santa Ana.

McKenny, a 33-year veteran of the Marine Corps, was appointed to the board by 3rd District County Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez in 1990, and has served as board secretary. As chairman he succeeds John Gill.

The trustees oversee an annual budget of about $4 million. A largely anonymous public group, the board has spearheaded several cemetery improvements recently.

One high-profile project was the opening of a veterans memorial last fall in El Toro Memorial Park. The memorial features a crossbar flagpole where the deceased veteran’s name and the flag of the military branch can be displayed, regardless of where the person is buried.

Currently, the group is looking for donations to add a black granite memorial monument for veterans.

“This is an important job,” McKenny said. “Our goal is to celebrate life by making the cemeteries pleasant for the living. It’s only a thankless job because people don’t know much about it, but we keep chugging along to keep the place respectable.”