In a Tuesday ceremony at Village Square in Cumberland, Mayor Fred Bates helped unveil a marble stone that will serve as a commemorative marker of a person or an occasion. For each gift of $500 a name will be affixed to the stone, which was donated by a Tahsis company."The concept of the marble slab was to give people the opportunity to establish someone's memory permanently, and at the same time do something good for the village park," said Bates, who gifted the first marker in memory of his late wife Barb, who passed away after a battle against brain cancer in December 2007. The couple had been married 45 years."It's a nice way to give Barb a permanent memory. She was very much into gardening."Bates quipped that his family name, like that of Coun. Leslie Baird, could probably fill an entire plaque."My dad had half a dozen brothers and sisters," said Bates, a born and raised Cumberlander whose mother's family was also a considerable size, as were the Kellys, the Bairds and the Robertsons. "They were all coal miners. There's lots of old families that could easily fill that plaque up with old memories."I've told my cousins about it," he added. "My uncle was the last person killed in the coal mines before they closed. That would be good for them to get his name on there."Proceeds from the Friends of Village Square name recognition program will help maintain Village Square park, formerly a gas station. A total of $108,000 in funding went into establishing the park, which opened about a year ago. The province kicked in half the funds while the Village and Island Coastal Economic Trust split the other half. A fair bit of work lies ahead as the park "becomes a civic gathering place," Bates said.reporter@comoxvalleyrecord.com