The founder of an annual historic cemetery costumed tour will be recognized at this year’s presentation.

    The late W. Walton Moore Jr. will be honored by the Rose Hill Company at the Fifth Annual Rose Hill Historic Cemetery Costumed Tour, which is set for Saturday. Moore is credited with

the idea of the cemetery tour in the 1980s, Tour Director Anne McKee said.

     The tour is free, however for the first time donations will be accepted. Parking at Calvary Christian School is $2, with proceeds going directly to the school. Last year’s funds paid for the school’s softball uniforms, McKee said.  

    “Our tour is a community minded group of individuals. We like to reach out to partner with the Lauderdale County Archives and Calvary Christian School,” she said.

    The company partners with the archives to ensure historical accuracy.

    “We’ve assisted the people who play the parts of these historical characters and furnishing them with information so we’re as close to history as we can be,” Records Manager Ward Calhoun Jr. said. “We don’t like to fabricate anything, we just like to tell it like it really happened.”

    One story the company does take license with involves an unusual inscription on the tomb of Dr. Shackleford, a Confederate doctor buried in the cemetery. The inscription reads: “Paid for by his lady friends.”

    Although it is unknown who the inscription refers to, Shackleford’s widow is portrayed as being nonplussed by the inscription and joined by two ladies who attest to the doctor’s charms.

    The tour includes two feuding founding fathers of Meridian – Lewis Ragsdale, portrayed by Steve Nabors, and John Ball, portrayed by Keith Jacoby.

    “I pretty much tell the story of my arrival in Meridian and what was going on and at the same time I start on Lewis Ragsdale,” Jacoby said. “I accuse him of riding my coattails. He says the same thing about me. There’s truth in both of them. They both think they’re right, and to a degree they are. Ultimately if you get the two of them, you get a better history of both of them because you get a better view of it.”

    Brenda Stewart portrays Nebraska Read, the only woman buried with 150-plus Confederate soldiers and one Confederate seaman.

    “Anne and I have known each other for a few decades, and she called on me because we both have an interest in storytelling,” Stewart said. “She she asked me if I had an interest in doing one of the parts.

    “I enjoy this. I’ve been with it from the very beginning and it’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of work, It’s hard talking for that long, but it’s really a worthwhile thing. My hat is off to Anne McKee for all the hard work she has put into it and into promoting it,” Stewart said.

     The cast and their roles for the Fifth Annual Rose Hill Historic Cemetery Costumed Tour includes: Steve Nabors, “Lewis Ragsdale”; Keith Jacoby, “John Ball”; Michelle Joyner, “Gypsy Queen:; Bill Arlinghaus, “Gypsy King”; Carol Wiggins, “Mrs. Shackleford”; Sharon Chatham and Emmie Banks, “Lady friends of Dr. Shackleford”; Kyle Rutledge, “John Thomas Woods”; Zena Limerick and Cheri Barry, “Mayor and Mrs. Dial; Chuck and Dottie Calvert, “Rev. and Mrs. Boseman”; Doyle McKee, “Charles Rubush”; Elmer Rubush, “Jordan McKee”; Carolyn Starnes, “Marjorie Austin”; Odie Barrett, “Mayor Taylor”; Dr. Richard Lizak, “Col. William Patton, CSA”; Tracie and Matt Harrison, “Mr. and Mrs. John McInnis, movers and shakers, post Civil War”; Betty Davis, “Yellow Fever Story”; Brenda Stewart, “Nebraska Read,” who is accompanied by Hewitt Clark.