In 2003, an Army veteran who had been a captain died. The body was cremated in Owensboro. No family member came forward to claim the cremains—the cremated remains.
For 22 years, those remains sat stored at the Haley McGinnis Funeral Home & Crematory, presumably forgotten by the outside world.
Until now.
Last week, the cremains were placed into a handsome wooden urn specially built by three students at Henderson County High School’s Career & Technical Education Unit.
On Monday afternoon, with the participation of 10 cadets in HCHS’s Army Junior ROTC program, a ceremony will be conducted at the Kentucky Veterans Cemetery West at Hopkinsville at which the cremains of that captain and three others—a former Army private who died in 2018, a Navy spouse who died in 2020 and a former Navy seaman apprentice who died in 2023—will be placed in their final resting place.
Why their cremains went unclaimed for years will probably never be known. Perhaps they had been married but had no children or siblings, and their spouse preceded them in death, leaving no survivors. Perhaps they became indigent and homeless, with no known immediate family.
“The point is, they are veterans and they deserve an honorable and dignified burial,” Fred Behnke of Robards, who with his wife, Claudia, are the Kentucky statewide volunteers with the Missing in America Project, a national nonprofit dedicated to locating, identifying and interring the unclaimed cremains of American veterans and eligible dependents. The organization says it has identified and interred the unclaimed cremains of more than 7,000 veterans since 2007.
The Behnkes feel a connection to veterans. Each of their fathers served overseas during World War II; they have a son who is a master sergeant in the Army who is preparing to retire.
They are also both talented woodworkers. Fred some years ago learned of a person at his company who built wooden urns for the unclaimed cremains of military veterans. The Behnkes have since built nearly 40 such urns themselves.
Then last fall, after Fred Behnke retired from full-time work, they got involved with the Missing in America Project (MIAP). They visit funeral homes, crematoriums and even coroner’s offices to ask whether they are storing any unclaimed cremains.
If sufficient documentation for the cremains—the person’s name, date of birth, date of death and Social Security number—are available, they forward the information to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which will determine whether that person is a veteran or dependent who is eligible for interment in a national cemetery.
The four unclaimed cremains to be interred on Monday are the first the Behnkes have been able to get identified and arranged to be in a dignified resting place, though others are pending.
For the interments, they could have supplied urns—furniture-grade wooden boxes—that they made themselves.
Instead, the Behnkes reached out to J.T. Payne, assistant principal for the HCHS CTE Unit, to see whether some carpentry students would be willing to undertake the task as an educational experience.
Payne agreed. “In career and technical education, we place a high value on community partnerships, especially in the form of service learning,” he said. “When a project makes a positive impact on the community, allows students to practice good citizenship and furthers the skills we teach in the classroom, it’s a win-win for everyone involved.”
The Behnkes furnished hackberry lumber along with specifications and a pine example of the cremation urn to serve as a model for the students—Cameron Ramirez, Camden Henshaw and Quinn Butler—who have cut, glued, sanded and finished the wood to create the urns.
Additionally, the Behnkes gave presentations concerning the history and mission of MIAP to the high school’s Junior ROTC cadets, and requested that the cadets ceremonially fold three American burial flags and formally present them at the interment Monday.
“This is a huge thing,” HCHS Army instructor Sgt. (Retired) Ashley Wolfe said. “These kids have never seen anything like this.” In fact, she believes this is the first time a Junior ROTC unit in Kentucky has conducted a burial flag presentation at a military interment.
“If we can get more young people interested, maybe we can get more volunteers and make sure more veterans get buried with the dignity they deserve,” Fred Behnke said in an interview with the Hendersonian.
The ceremony will eventually get statewide attention; a Kentucky Educational Television crew will be on hand to record the ceremony for a segment scheduled to appear on “Kentucky Life” this fall.
***
Veterans and the public are welcome to attend the interment ceremony at 1 p.m. Monday, April 28, at the Committal Shelter at Kentucky Veterans Cemetery West at 5817 Fort Campbell Blvd. in Hopkinsville.
More information about the Missing in America Project is available at miap.us.
