Wild hogs tear up Matinburg Cemetery

By Kim Cox
kcox@campcountynow.com

The Matinburg Cemetery was torn up April 3 by wild hogs, according to Kristen Giggleman, a member of the cemetery’s maintenance committee.
“The hogs annihilated the cemetery,” she said.
Furrows of where hogs dug in the soft mud run all over the front half of the cemetery. Mrs. Giggleman said the hogs even knocked over a cement bench.
“They went to town on the cemetery,” she said. “They didn’t knock any tombstones over.”
Matinburg Cemetery is on the roll of Texas Historical Sites, with the origins of the cemetery starting in 1871, when a local landowner buried his wife there, intending to move the body later to an established cemetery. The body was never moved, and over time, other people were buried in the cemetery. The cemetery is located on Farm-to-Market Road 556, close to Strube Farms.
“There’s a lot of history at that church,” Mrs. Giggleman said.
The cemetery is about one month from the annual May Day, the first Saturday in May when the friends and families of those buried in the cemetery are invited to come and help with the upkeep and participate in memorial services.
L. C. Calhoun Henderson, commissioner of Precinct 3, said the hogs “are a heck of a problem for everybody.”
“They just come through over the whole county,” he said. “I know Strube has had lots of problems out there with them. They get worse and worse every year.”
The wild hog population in Texas has grown exponentially over the past 20 years, with the estimate to be hovering at two million according to Todd Staples, the state agriculture commissioner, and they inflict $52 million in damages annually.
Mrs. Giggleman said the committee has already contacted the caretaker about the damage, and she said they should be able to pay for the repairs out of funds for the maintenance of the cemetery.