Vernon Davis has a special place in his heart for cemeteries.

Davis, of Beulah, Wyo., said he and others are working with youth organizations such as 4-H and the Boy Scouts to bring young, hard-working people to cemeteries throughout the Black Hills. The program is geared toward teaching youths the historical significance of the burial grounds dating back as far as 1876.

"All of our history is in those cemeteries," Davis said. "All of those people are our history. If we're not going to take care of the cemeteries, then we aren't going to take care of anything else," he said.

Homesteaders, miners and colorful characters were part of the early flavor of the settlement of the Black Hills and northern prairies in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Many of those people put down roots and stayed to make a living in the area. Part of that experience included making a place for those who died along the way.

Cemeteries with a wide range of themes can be found throughout the northern prairies and gulches of the Black Hills. Some are community-oriented, where all from one town or cultural community are buried there. These would include town cemeteries in Vale, Newell, Nisland, Belle Fourche, Spearfish, St. Onge, Galena and others.

Others are formed for a particular religious group such as the St. Anthony's (Mason) Cemetery north of Newell, or the Lutheran cemeteries at St. Onge and Snoma. Some are part of ethnic heritage, such as the Finnish and Danish burial grounds in Lawrence County.

All have their unique character, and many survive on the backs of volunteer labor. Some cemeteries are in a state of overgrown bushes, unmowed grass and tilting headstones. Others have active volunteer caretakers who keep the grounds tidy for visitors, especially around major holidays.

But as rural church congregations dwindle and churches close, maintenance of the graveyards that are often attached to them falls - in the best-case scenario - to a cemetery association or to people who have an interest in them.

The Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota closed nine small parishes on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in December; many of them have some form of cemetery associated with the church. If the diocese transfers those properties to the tribe, as is hoped, that transfer of title would be subject to "the rights of interested parties to have access to the cemetery for the same purpose as was the case when we did own the property," diocesan chancellor Steven Sanford said.

When a Catholic church closes in the Diocese of Rapid City, a cemetery association is usually formed to provide for the care and maintenance of the cemetery, the diocesan archivist said.

Some area cemeteries have survived for generations, cared for not by decendants but by those who want to preserve history.

The Galena Historical Society has made the Vinegar Hill Cemetery in Galena its top priority.

The cemetery, east of Strawberry Hill about 13 miles southeast of Lead-Deadwood, grew out of the 1876 gold rush in the Deadwood area. Galena, named for the lead sulfide ore that bears silver, once had a population of about 2,000 people connected to the silver boom in the 1870s and 1880s.

The Galena Historical Society has raised money for the cemetery in past years in many ways, including a Volksmarch, an annual foot race, selling T-shirts and applying for grants. Other benefactors and groups have donated cash to the restoration effort.

"Our members have been working diligently," society officer Marilyn Schwaner said. "Before the snow came last October, they had re-set 26 headstones." Some headstones are legible; others are completely missing. Schwaner said volunteers continue to make plans for setting markers for unmarked graves in the cemetery.

She said more work planned includes trimming the cemetery and placing a granite stone marker for one of its most colorful characters, Aunt Sally. (See accompanying story.)

Bill Caron of rural Deadwood has adopted a child's grave at Vinegar Hill Cemetery. Through the adoption, Caron has cleaned up the little boy's grave, repaired the wooden fence around it and fixed the headstone.

The society is asking other people to do the same for other gravesites there.

North of the Black Hills, there are two cemeteries managed by the Vale Cemetery Association. These volunteers have a permanent trust fund that uses only the money from the fund's interest to keep the cemeteries mowed and kept in good shape.

The principal is left untouched, and in years such as the past one, interest hasn't been enough to cover some of the expenses, according to board member Donald Trohkimoinen.

"It's kind of a struggle, but we've been getting by," he said. "We have volunteer labor like any cemetery in a rural area. It's never going to look like the National Cemetery, but it works really good."

Vale Cemetery No. 1, also known as the Beals Cemetery, was established in 1877. Burials there ceased in the 1970s because the water table was too shallow to dig graves. Vale Cemetery No. 2 is south of town.

Trohkimoinen said the cemetery board takes the job seriously, and he is confident future generations will step up when it's their turn. "I think it will be taken care of," he said. "When they need to, they go to work on it. A lot of them have family buried there," he said about younger generations.

A three-person board manages memorial monies dedicated to the upkeep of the grounds of the Wilson Cemetery, on a bluff about halfway between Newell and Vale.

The cemetery has several family burials for rural Newell and Vale area homestead familes.

Ron Funk and Briana Wilson Funk of Newell mow and trim it. The Funks also keep the records updated and file new information with the Butte County Register of Deeds. Most of the lots in the cemetery are sold.

Briana Funk said there are many Wilson descendants who, she hopes, will take an interest in managing the cemetery in the future.

Staff writers Mary Garrigan and Deb Holland contributed to this story.