TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

For Die-Hard Gator Fans

ADVERTISEMENT

By JESSICA GRESKO The Associated Press

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 5, 2009

Updated: 03/05/2009 12:34 am

The University of Florida doesn't advertise it, but a few times a year people call about having their ashes spread on the school's football field. The school tries to honor those requests and knows alumni quietly scatter ashes on the campus's Lake Alice or behind fraternity houses. Now the school wants to build a Gator graveyard of sorts.

The university wants to build a columbarium - a structure with niches for the ashes of alumni - but there's a catch. Without the blessing of state lawmakers, the idea itself is dead. To build a columbarium, the university would have to be licensed as a cemetery. But it wouldn't qualify because new Florida cemeteries must have 30 acres. That's more than 20 times the size of the field of The Swamp.

The proposed law would let any of Florida's 11 state schools build their own campus columbarium. Identical bills have been filed in both the House and Senate (SB 926, HB 671). The bill passed its first committee Wednesday without objection.

Six state senators attended the university at some point, as did nearly a quarter of the House's 120 members.

The Associated Press

IT WON'T BE THE FIRST

The University of Virginia opened a 180-vault columbarium in 1991 and another 180 spaces in 2004. A master plan calls for building more space when those run out.

Indiana's Notre Dame opened a cemetery in 1843 and in 2007 added a columbarium with approximately 650 niches and 70 crypts. The university says it has sold roughly a third of the space available and could construct up to nine more similar buildings based on demand.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT