Disappointed pet owners want change

Jonesboro, Arkansas – Earlier this month, Craighead Electric purchased the property. What is happening currently with the cemetery?

Pet owners in the room battled valiantly for the animals they loved the most. On Saturday, January 27, a public hearing about the Thelma Holford Pet Cemetery was conducted at the Jonesboro Youth Center.

The only representative present at the meeting was Jason Gazaway, of Gazaway & White Commercial Real Estate, who represents Craighead Electric. Members of the community expressed their worries, thoughts, and suggestions to return the remains of their pets to their rightful owners.

They can only get their deceased pet’s headstone back, according to Gazaway. In the coming spring, he said, firm workers would be available to assist with monument collection on March 15, April 15, and May 15.

“I have been told that there’s not anything to exhume,” Gazaway said. “That the length of time that’s gone by, the natural process has occurred, and that there’s not going to be anything found.”

Some merely want their money returned. William and Kara Holt, residents of Jonesboro, have six animals interred in the cemetery and have purchased fifteen sites. They claimed to have spent considerably more on headstones, spending $90 for each spot.

A Jonesboro homeowner named Susan Jones claimed to have spent a significant amount of money having her “fur babies” interred in the cemetery.

“I mean we spend all this money on our fur babies and we’re getting crapped on,” Jones said. “I paid five hundred dollars per piece, that shows you the love I have for my babies.”

Some people want Craighead Electric to be constructed somewhere else and would rather that the site remain undeveloped. Gazaway asserted that they already have development plans, though. According to him, the precise location where 200 animals are buried will serve as the entryway to the new facility’s concrete construction.

Leon Lachat, a resident of Jonesboro, questioned the real estate agent on the development project in many ways.

“Why can they not buy five acres of land somewhere else in the county?” Lachat said. “You see what I’m saying, I don’t understand.”

Gazaway cited convenience as the reason.

“I mean I see what you’re saying but this property joins their current building, it’s where their headquarters is,” he said.

Gazaway stated that since there was disagreement in the meeting, a decision must be reached before June 1.

During the upcoming council meeting on Tuesday, February 6, several community residents expressed their readiness to confront the city of Jonesboro in this battle.