East Tennessee Veterans Cemetery - Knoxville

Contact Information
Lead Squadron or Group: Patriot Guard Riders - Tennessee
Location Leader: Deborah McKay
Contact Number: 865-673-0298





Final Itinerary WAA 2007;

December 15 Knoxville National/East Tennessee State:

Ride Captains:      Jeff Stroud (amenjeff@localnet.com) and Duane Romine (eternal_sun42@hotmail.com):  
                                    East Tennessee State Veteran’s Cemetery; 5901 Lyons View Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919

                                
                                 Deb McKay (debmckay@bellsouth.net): Knoxville National Cemetery; 939 Tyson Street, NW                                      Knoxville, Tennessee 37917

Program:               The speakers for these events will be; Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale will do the scripted speech at East Tennessee State Veteran’s Cemetery, there will be an Echo Taps performed; a bag-piper to play, 21-gun salute and a local NJROTC unit to perform a drill after the script has been performed and another unit will be the Color Guard. At Knoxville National, we’ll have News Anchor, Alan Williams from our local CBS affiliate, will be doing the speech at Knoxville National, and we will also have the Scottish-American Military Society present; single bugle taps to be performed; a bag-piper to play, 21 gun salute and local NJROTC unit will be the Color Guard.

Staging: Staging for this event will be at Chilhowee Park (Zoo Side, at Exit 392 on Interstate 40 please follow the Knoxville Zoo Signs) parking lot where we will divide up the participants for each cemetery. The route for travel to the cemeteries will be discussed at staging.

Time: Staging will be set at 9:30 a.m. with KSU NLT 10:15 a.m. This is to provide enough time for those individuals desiring to go to East Tennessee State Veteran’s Cemetery time to arrive before the scheduled event as we will NOT be traveling the Interstate with the road construction presently going on. This is to reduce the risk of any injuries.

Special Instructions: Cages unless you wish to participate in the actual ride, you may arrive at the cemetery before 11:30 a.m. EST   For those wishing to attend at East Tennessee State Veteran’s Cemetery (aka Lyon’s View), please take the first gravel road to your left once entering into the parking lot and park around the rear of the rotunda at the cemetery. This leaves plenty of room for the bikes and the drill team to do their performance.

For those wishing to attend Knoxville National Cemetery, please park on the streets outside of the cemetery as this is an extremely small cemetery and lacks adequate parking for a large amount of vehicles, only vehicles with handicapped parking permits will be allowed to park inside the cemetery.

Weather: Chance of showers. Highs in the low 50s and lows in the upper 20s. But pray (like we did last year) that the weather changes between now and then, it worked last year, we need for it to work again this year.