See the renovated Veterans Memorial at Chief Tecopa Cemetery

With a robust population of former military service members in the Pahrump Valley, the Veterans Memorial inside the Chief Tecopa Cemetery is a regularly used venue and now, it’s even better than it was before.

Thanks to the efforts of the Pahrump Veterans Memorial Advisory Committee, the site has an entirely rebuilt multi-purpose building much more suited to the community’s needs than the previous one. Originally a pole-barn that had been given a very basic remodel, the former building did not have a crucial public facility, restrooms. After years of work, the advisory committee was finally able to secure the funding necessary for that project, with the bulk of the $646,000 cost being borne by the Pahrump Cemetery Fund.

To commemorate the official opening of the new Veterans Memorial Building, officials with the town of Pahrump, Nye County and the advisory committee hosted a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday, April 10.

“Thank you everybody for coming. This is our first time we get a chance to get to walk into the new Veterans Memorial Building, and actually, it’s going to be a universal building for more than just our veterans’ groups,” Nye County Commissioner Frank Carbone said that afternoon. “Again, this is a great step forward from what was here before. There were just things you couldn’t get accomplished in the building that was here. Today, when you walk into this building, you’re going to see something that we probably should have had years and years ago. This is a great event for us. We have bathrooms, we have an area where we actually do some meetings, all of the activities for the town’s meetings will be here and I think this will be great for other folks too.”

Members of the advisory committee then congregated around the blue ribbon stretched across the entryway, with local veteran and committee members doing the honor of cutting the ribbon.

Afterward, the crowd trooped inside to check out the new facility, which is approximately 2,500 square feet with a large space that can be partitioned to created two rooms, two multi-stall restrooms and a small front patio.

“This started about four, maybe five years ago when we started asking for it,” Pahrump Veterans Memorial Advisory Committee Chair Carl Jones told the Pahrump Valley Times. He said the initial plan had been to build restrooms outside of the existing building but the committee voted against that proposal. The committee then ran into a problem with the cost of running sewage to the site but fortunately, it turned out that the site could tie into the Pahrump Community Library’s sewage system for a much more reasonable price.

“And we are going to go a couple of steps further,” Jones continued. “We want to get security lights for outside because eventually, we would like to put memorabilia from all of the branches of service inside the building, as well as cameras inside to keep everything safe.”

As part of the ceremony on Monday, the advisory committee had prepared a special plaque presentation as a surprise for one of the area’s strong supporters of veteran causes.

“Today we have a special guest with us, former commissioner John Koenig, and we all got together to give you this plaque for your dedicated service, contributions for veterans’ memorial projects and commitment to Nye County veterans,” Cox announced as the group erupted into applause.

Koenig thanked the committee for the touching tribute, adding, “This is amazing compared to what we had… These guys need something. They did what they were supposed to do, they left their families and everything to serve our country. They deserve whatever we can give them.”

The Veterans Memorial Building is located at 751 East Street next to the Pahrump Community Library.

For more information on the Pahrump Veterans Memorial Advisory Committee and its activities, visit www.PahrumpNV.org

Contact reporter Robin Hebrock at rhebrock@pvtimes.com