Rants and Raves: New veterans cemetery was needed

RAVE: For the opening of a much-needed national veterans cemetery in Montevallo.

The first burial services for veterans and spouses were held at the new Alabama National Cemetery at Montevallo this week. The cremated remains of six veterans and three spouses were buried.

The Alabama National Cemetery is the state’s third national veterans cemetery, joining others in Phenix City and Mobile. The Mobile cemetery is closed to burials. Eventually, the Montevallo cemetery will have 11,000 spaces for casket and cremation burials.

Considering Alabama’s long tradition of military service, the new facility is badly needed.

In fact, we would like to see area officials pursue a national cemetery to be located in or near Montgomery County to serve the families of veterans in central Alabama.

RANT: For the Autauga County School System, which was cited again in an audit for teachers not filing collected funds and receipts with their school’s bookkeeper in a timely manner.

The audit released Friday by the State Examiners of Public Accounts otherwise was clean, and such a negative finding in which school officials say there were no missing funds normally would not be a big deal. But the finding was a repeat of a problem found in a 2006 audit.

School Superintendent Greg Faulkner said in a response to the audit, which covered the 2007-2008 fiscal year, that central office staff would monitor future compliance and "we will be officially reprimanding each teacher found not complying with our policy of timely deposit of collections."

Other than this continuing problem, the system would deserve a Rave for its most recent audit.

RANT: For the treatment of 7-year-old Nate Turner, who was abused by his father and now lies brain dead in a Massachusetts hospital awaiting a determination of his fate.

The boy still could be living happily with his grandmother in Eufaula, but his father, Leslie Schuler, took him to Massachusetts after claiming he had a court order giving him custody, although no such order can now be found.

Massachusetts authorities are now investigating the case as a murder.

We hope Massachusetts will throw the book at Schuler for this heinous treatment of a child. But we also hope that the case will be thoroughly reviewed by judicial authorities to see if more could have been done by the courts and child welfare system to prevent Nate’s abuse. Perhaps such a review would help decrease the possibility of future tragedies.