Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times

'It’s like serendipity,' says Sam Lucas, who is the new manager of Sunset Cemetary in Christiansburg. Lucas is also a stone carver and says his new job is a natural progression of his career.

CHRISTIANSBURG -- When Sam S. Lucas was a young boy, his father -- the elder Sam Lucas with no middle name -- started making wooden coffins.

"He made them for me to play in. I wanted to be a mortician," the younger Lucas said.

"I know," he groaned and grinned. "Ain't I weird?

"Then I found out I didn't want to work with bodies," he said. "I wanted to work with the living."

Now, Lucas, 45, has a new job he calls a "blessing." He's the man Christiansburg hired to become Sunset Cemetery's first manager after the town agreed to take over the 33-acre burial park from the nonprofit Christiansburg Cemetery Corp. in November. The corporation's board of trustees, led by Town Councilwoman Ann Carter, asked the town to assume responsibility for the cemetery when the board's aging members decided to dissolve the corporation.

Although the dissolution of the board still isn't final and Carter is still responsible for handling burials in the cemetery, Lucas officially became a town employee Jan. 23. Jason Sage is Lucas' helper, in charge of cemetery maintenance.

"I will be very pleased when it's finalized," Carter said. "Sam is a very nice young man and I wish him well."

Carter, who has managed the cemetery as a volunteer for the past 18 years, has called her work there a "labor of love." In recent years, however, the demands of running a cemetery without reprieve have left her feeling like an overworked laborer.

Lucas, a stonemason and monument-maker by trade, was selected from more than 20 applicants for the newly created cemetery manager's job, one that pays an annual salary of $33,962. In addition to operating his own monument company, Lucas helped build many of Virginia Tech's Hokie stone buildings.

"For the past 27 years, I've been cutting and laying stone," he said. "When I left, I was 'Old Sam.' I had to teach people the trade."

"Sam had a lot of experience with Sunset Cemetery," said Town Manager Lance Terpenny. "He had done a lot of work renovating tombstones up there."

Terpenny said Lucas will be coordinating the sale of cemetery lots, working with families and funeral homes to arrange burials, and meeting with bereaved families. He also will be spending a lot of time at the computer, transferring records from Carter's database to the town's system.

"It will be a full-time job for the foreseeable future," Terpenny noted. "He will be doing a lot of research on the graves."

All of that suits Lucas fine.

A history buff whose roots in the area run deep, he said he took the job despite taking a cut in pay because he loves the community -- and Sunset Cemetery.

"This is my family cemetery. A lot of good friends are buried here," he said. "It's important for the town to know that the cemetery is in good, caring hands."

Like Carter, Lucas said managing the cemetery will be a labor of love for him.

"I've got some big shoes to fill with Ann Carter," he said. "Sunset is the most well-kept cemetery I've seen. It's well-organized, extremely clean. We feel like it's one of the safest cemeteries around."

Lucas said he hopes that by being on the cemetery site, he will be able to do some additional landscaping and make the cemetery a parklike setting for residents who just want to visit.

"I want people to feel free to come eat their picnic lunch here," he said.

"One of my goals," he added, "is to restore the old sections of this cemetery, to make sure the stones are upright and clean."

Lucas said that once the computer records are transferred and updated in the town's system, he hopes to be a resource for people doing genealogical research. Sunset Cemetery is the final resting place for more than 8,000 people and dates to 1881.

Since the town decided to take over the cemetery, renovations have been made to a small house on the South Franklin Street property. It will serve as an office where families can come for assistance with burial arrangements. Lucas said he looks forward to serving families in their time of need.

"I have experience working with grieving families. And I'm just a real good listener," he said. "First and foremost, their loved ones will be cared for and treated with respect. My door will always be open to help people with the grieving process."

For now, the fees for burial at Sunset Cemetery will remain the same: $650 to $700 for grave sites; $550 for weekday opening and closing costs; and $650 opening and closing costs for weekends and holidays. Once the assets are turned over to the town from Christiansburg Cemetery Corp., the fees could go up because Christiansburg is paying for Lucas' service. Terpenny said Lucas and Sage will likely work out an on-call schedule for weekends and holidays.

Lucas, however, said he thinks the cemetery can operate with self-sufficiency, as it did as a nonprofit operation.

"I'm sure we can run this cemetery efficiently so that it's not a burden to the town," he said. "We haven't raised the fees, but in the future that's probably unstoppable. Look at the price of real estate -- and this is the last piece of real estate you'll own. They'll probably have to raise the fees in the future."

Adam Carpenetti, assistant to the town manager and Lucas' immediate supervisor, said he expects the council will work out a business plan for the cemetery.

"There's quite a bit of land up there to keep doing this for several years," he said of the burial park. With nearly 3,000 plots still available, it's estimated that Sunset Cemetery will be operational for the next 50 years.

To Lucas, the cemetery is a timeless symbol of the town and its people.

He points to a poem he keeps close at hand, one that came from a cemetery brochure in New York. The author, he said, is unknown.

He believes the poem's ending says it all: "A cemetery is a history of the people -- a perpetual record of yesterday and a sanctuary of peace and quiet today. A cemetery exists because every life is worth loving and remembering -- always."