On Nov. 25, the day of what would have been my late grandfather’s 78th birthday, my family visited our dearly departed, only to find that Fern Knoll Cemetery used the Girvan family plot as a dump site.

Covering the graves of more than a dozen family members, spanning three generations and including two veterans, was a pile of debris the Dallas cemetery seemingly thought it was proper to dump on the burial plot rather than in a more proper area such as the nearby woods. I was heartened by the fact some of my peers shared in the collective outrage of my family.

“I think it’s absolutely disgraceful what happened,” said sophomore Mikhail Hazlak. “There is a family that has an emotional connection to this place and seeing it treated with this level of disrespect is disheartening.”

But what drove home the absolute lack of care displayed by Fern Knoll is the fact that many of the branches in the pile, which were long since dead and brown, had saw marks, eliminating the “act of God” excuse.

“That’s kind of unprofessional on their part.” said junior Casimir Glaude.

Additionally, whomever installed the headstone of my late granduncle, who died last year after a battle with throat cancer, decided to leave a sizable tree root sticking out of the ground. That root could have been easily removed, but was not. Much like the pile of debris, the root was dried out, indicating that it had been exposed for sometime.

“Very lazy,” said Glaude. “Like who’s managing them to be honest.”

The cemetery also made it a hassle to contact them and lodge a complaint because the cemetery’s phone number, plastered on a sign right at the entrance, is inoperable.

“That is legit false advertising,” said senior Nate Swetz. “They should have a working phone number at all times.”

While it took a series of phone calls to finally contact the cemetery’s management and tell them to clean up their mess, it would appear that my family is not alone in having their dead disrespected by a neglectful cemetery.

“It’s not just [Fern Knoll Cemetery],” said alum Colleen Ryan, who has family buried in Sacred Heart Cemetery in Plains. “Several headstones near the edge of [Sacred Heart Cemetery] were getting covered by branches and other debris removed from other parts of the cemetery. It seems to be a common practice to just ditch these branches and whatnot along the side of the cemetery, even if there are graves there.”