A first of its kind event for Oakdale, organizers want you to put the date on your calendar and get ready for a special night of history at the Oakdale Citizen’s Cemetery.

Being put together by the Friends of Oakdale Heritage in cooperation with the cemetery, the Saturday, Oct. 5 tour is a fundraiser for the local cemetery at 701 E. J St., Oakdale.

Helping coordinate this ‘Once Upon A Tomb’ event is Amy Velasco, who said tickets will be on sale for $25 and this will be a walking, nighttime tour.

Several local residents will be taking on the roles of notable Oakdale figures, with the tour stopping by the selected gravesites to learn the history behind the people.

“Each actor will do about a five-minute snippet of the person’s life – or death,” Velasco said. “It is around Halloween so it might be a little spooky.”

But the overall goal is two-fold, education and fundraising, with about a half dozen gravesites to be on the tour.

“We’re really excited,” Velasco noted of this first-time event, which she said is fashioned after similar historic cemetery tours in Columbia.

The goal is to fill a few separate tours for the Oct. 5 fundraiser, with staggered starting times throughout the evening.

More information will be available as the event gets closer, but Velasco said since it is a fundraiser, they wanted to make sure people got the date circled on the calendar well in advance.