{"id":177645,"date":"2026-03-04T11:33:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T11:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/177645\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T11:33:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T11:33:06","slug":"lutz-cemetery-affixes-qr-codes-to-graves-to-honor-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/177645\/","title":{"rendered":"Lutz Cemetery Affixes QR Codes To Graves To Honor Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

LUTZ, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The American Legion<\/a> Post 108<\/a> has launched a year-long historian project at Lutz Cemetery<\/a>, one of only two cemeteries the American Legion owns and operates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The project at the cemetery, which has\u00a0operated since 1911<\/a>, will focus on young people preserving the history of those buried there.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Lutz Cemetery is one of only two U.S. cemeteries owned and operated by the American Legion, located at
201 5th Ave in Lutz<\/p>\n

The American Legion is launching a year-long historian project at Lutz Cemetery
\n
\u00a0Young people will write biographies about people buried at the cemetery
\n
QR codes, attached to headstones, will link to the new online biographies\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those youths will \u2018adopt\u2019 someone who is buried at the cemetery. They will then research that person\u2019s life, collecting data, records and photos. The young historians will use that information and content to create a webpage, serving as a biography.<\/p>\n

Once completed, a stainless steel QR code will be affixed to the gravestone. Visitors to the cemetery can use that QR code to view the biography through a company called Life\u2019s QR<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s an example for Lt. Col. Louis Carrol, who is buried at Lutz Cemetery and served in the Air Force during World War II, Korea and Vietnam:\u00a0QR Code – Gravestone Link<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThat is how we\u2019re hoping to lasso in some of the history that we have here,\u201d said Toni Hedstrom, the operations manager at Lutz Cemetery and the marketing manager for American Legion Post 108. \u201cWe\u2019re blessed to have the history we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

The historian project<\/a> is in line with the American Legion\u2019s focus. The organization has four pillars<\/a>, one of which is \u201cChildren & Youth.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a recent Saturday in February, the American Legion hosted a Cub Scout Troop. The members of the troop cleaned grit and grime off the gravestones.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hope, selfishly, is maybe some of these kids will notice these years (birth years and death years on the headstones).”\u00a0said Mike Lowell, Veterans Services Officer for the American Legion Post 108. “And think \u2018I wonder what was happening 100 years ago.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUTZ, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The American Legion Post 108 has launched a year-long historian project at Lutz Cemetery, one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[274,770,276,9073,115,596,135,137,136,278,835],"class_list":["post-177645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-top-stories","tag-community-news","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-jeff-butera","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}