ABILENE, Kan. — Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknowns will be the topic of the next Lunch & Learn program at the Eisenhower Presidential Library.

The program is scheduled to begin at noon Thursday in the Eisenhower Presidential Library Visitors Center Auditorium, 200 SE 4th, Abilene. The program is open to the public at no charge. A light lunch will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis. Additionally, the program will have a sign-language interpreter.

Tom Tudor will present Most Hallowed Ground: Arlington Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknowns.

A wreath laying ceremony will follow at 1:30 p.m. marking the 50th anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s death. The wreath laying in the Place of Meditation will include brief remarks given by Eisenhower’s granddaughter, Mary Jean.

Tudor’s program will focus on Arlington National Cemetery. It evolved from a place of necessity – set aside for a mounting wave of Civil War casualties – to sacred ground, the final resting place for more than 400,000 men and women who gave service and sacrifice to our country.

Once a sentinel and commander of the relief at the Tomb of the Unknowns, the most hallowed of the cemetery’s many landmarks, Tudor traces the story of this special, 624-acre plot on the west bank of the Potomac River.
Eisenhower presided over the interment of World War II and Korean War soldiers in 1958. This presentation continues a series coinciding with the exhibit Eisenhower’s Middle Road at the Central Kansas City Public Library. All are made possible by a grant to the Eisenhower Foundation from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City, Missouri.

Eisenhower’s Middle Road exhibit is now on display at the Kansas City Public Library, 14 W. 10th St., Kansas City, Mo., where Tudor will also present at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

The Lunch & Learn series is made possible courtesy of the Eisenhower Foundation and the Jeffcoat Memorial Foundation.