Past embezzlement comes back to haunt Lakeview Cemetery
Hey savvy news reader! Thanks for choosing local.
You are now reading
3 of 3 free articles.
POLSON — Marjorie Burgan and her husband David planned ahead: they purchased burial plots at Lakeview Cemetery in December 2004. Seven years later, on Dec. 4, 2011, David passed away, and Marjorie again visited the cemetery, this time to arrange her husband’s burial.
She wasn’t prepared for what she found.
The Burgans’ names were not on the “wall,” the map of the cemetery with each plot identified by name.
Burgan said Sexton Dana Deranleau told her she should have a white piece of paper, which was her proof of purchase. She returned with the paper and found that the cemetery had mistakenly sold one of the two plots two years ago, and a man was buried there. The cemetery made it right, letting her choose two other lots, Burgan said.
Burgan submitted two letters to local newspapers, one complaining about the lack of a bathroom at the cemetery and one telling the story of her husband’s lost burial plot.
The snafu came about, Burgan was told, because former cemetery board secretary/treasurer Kelly Buys had embezzeled money from the cemetery. According to court records Buys pleaded guilty to embezzling $32,000 from the board in 2005. She received a deferred sentence and has since paid restitution. No one was sure which sales of cemetery plots were recorded and which weren’t.
Burgan explained that she certainly didn’t want to get Deranleau in trouble, since it wasn’t his fault. She just didn’t want another family to go through what hers did when making burial arrangements.
“I don’t know how many people pre-buy,” Burgan said in a telephone interview from Mesa, Ariz. ”I wonder if I am the only one, but I don’t know.”
It would be easier to check now instead of when people are going to make burial arrangements, she noted.
Deranleau said last week he thinks this is an isolated incident. Since Burgan’s letter hit the papers, only one person called to check on a plot. That plot was in the right name.
It’s not often something happens to mar the cemetery’s peaceful atmosphere. Since around 1910, it’s been a quiet resting place for the deceased and a beautiful meditation spot for family and friends, with its panoramic views of Flathead Lake and the Mission Mountains.
“We still have white military headstones from the Spanish American War,” Deranleau said.
The older graves are on the terraces and the top northern portion of the cemetery.
Now administrated by the Lakeview Cemetery District Board and funded in part by a mill levy, the cemetery is a nonprofit venture and open to the public. Board members are Vicki Riebe, president, Fred Nelson, vice president, Kathryn Ike, secretary, Bruce Agrella and Chuck Jarecki. Members are appointed by the Lake County Commissioners.
“The district always was its own entity,” Riebe said.
After the embezzlement, the county commissioners decided that bookkeeping, funds and bill-paying would go through the county. Riebe, a county employee at the time, applied to be a board member and is now on her second term.
Last year, board members listed and prioritized needed repairs and equipment at the cemetery, but Riebe noted that a bathroom was the most pressing issue. The board is currently seeking funds to support construction of a public restroom.
