To place an obituary, please include the information from the obituary checklist below in an email to obits@pioneerpress.com. There is no option to place them through our website. Feel free to contact our obituary desk at 651-228-5263 with any questions.
General Information:
Your full name,
Address (City, State, Zip Code),
Phone number,
And an alternate phone number (if any)
Obituary Specification:
Name of Deceased,
Obituary Text,
A photo in a JPEG or PDF file is preferable, TIF and other files are accepted, we will contact you if there are any issues with the photo.
Ad Run dates
There is a discount for running more than one day, but this must be scheduled on the first run date to apply.
If a photo is used, it must be used for both days for the discount to apply, contact us for more information.
Policies:
Verification of Death:
In order to publish obituaries a name and phone number of funeral home/cremation society is required. We must contact the funeral home/cremation society handling the arrangements during their business hours to verify the death. If the body of the deceased has been donated to the University of Minnesota Anatomy Bequest Program, or a similar program, their phone number is required for verification.
Please allow enough time to contact them especially during their limited weekend hours.
A death certificate is also acceptable for this purpose but only one of these two options are necessary.
Guestbook and Outside Websites:
We are not allowed to reference other media sources with a guestbook or an obituary placed elsewhere when placing an obituary in print and online. We may place a website for a funeral home or a family email for contact instead; contact us with any questions regarding this matter.
Obituary Process:
Once your submission is completed, we will fax or email a proof for review prior to publication in the newspaper. This proof includes price and days the notice is scheduled to appear.
Please review the proof carefully. We must be notified of errors or changes before the notice appears in the Pioneer Press based on each day’s deadlines.
After publication, we will not be responsible for errors that may occur after final proofing.
Online:
Changes to an online obituary can be handled through the obituary desk. Call us with further questions.
Payment Procedure:
Pre-payment is required for all obituary notices prior to publication by the deadline specified below in our deadline schedule. Please call 651-228-5263 with your payment information after you have received the proof and approved its contents.
Credit Card: Payment accepted by phone only due to PCI (Payment Card Industry) regulations
EFT: Check by phone. Please provide your routing number and account number.
Cash: Accepted at our FRONT COUNTER Monday – Friday from 8:00AM – 3:30PM
Rates:
The minimum charge is $162 for the first 10 lines.
Every line after the first 10 is $12.20.
If the ad is under 10 lines it will be charged the minimum rate of $162.
On a second run date, the lines are $8.20 per line, starting w/ the first line.
For example: if first run date was 20 lines the cost would be $164.
Each photo published is $125 per day.
For example: 2 photos in the paper on 2 days would be 4 photo charges at $500.
Deadlines:
Please follow deadline times to ensure your obituary is published on the day requested.
Hours
Deadline (no exceptions)
Ad
Photos
MEMORIAM (NON-OBITUARY) REQUEST
Unlike an obituary, Memoriam submissions are remembrances of a loved one who has passed. The rates for a memoriam differ from obituaries.
Please call or email us for more memoriam information
Please call 651-228-5280 for more information.
HOURS: Monday – Friday 8:00AM – 5:00PM (CLOSED WEEKENDS and HOLIDAYS)
Please submit your memoriam ad to memoriams@pioneerpress.com or call 651-228-5280.
By PATRICK WHITTLE and GEOFF MULVIHILL
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A network of medical clinics that serves low-income residents in Maine said Wednesday it is shutting down its primary care operations because of Trump administration cuts to abortion providers.
President Donald Trump’s policy and tax bill, known as the “ big beautiful bill,” blocked Medicaid money from Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. The parameters in the bill also stopped funding from reaching Maine Family Planning, a much smaller provider that also delivers other medical services in the mostly rural state.
Maine Family Planning has informed its nearly 1,000 primary care patients that it will no longer be providing primary care service starting Oct. 31, the network said. The loss of Medicaid funding took about $2 million in reimbursements from the network, and it is no longer able to sustain primary care, it said.
The network “will continue seeing patients who need family planning care, regardless of insurance status, for as long as we are able,” Maine Family Planning said in a statement. The group also provides birth control, sexually transmitted disease testing, cancer screenings and routine OBGYN visits, it said.
“We were caught in this net because we provide abortion care as part of a full range of sexual and reproductive health care at 18 sites. We are proud to provide that care,” said George Hill, president and chief executive officer of Maine Family Planning.
Of the 17,535 visits made to Maine Family Planning’s 18 health center and mobile medical unit in 2024, 13% were for primary care services, Hill said.
Maine Family Planning has fought the halting of Medicaid dollars in federal court. But it suffered a setback in August when a federal judge ruled against restoring funding during the network’s ongoing lawsuit against the Trump administration. The network appealed to a higher court but has yet to receive a response. Hill said the legal fight will continue.
Maine Family Planning is one of three health organizations across the country that the federal government says is barred from receiving Medicaid reimbursements until the end of September 2026 under a provision in President Donald Trump’s tax and spending law. It targets groups that provide abortion and receive more than $800,000 a year in Medicaid reimbursements. Medicaid already did not cover abortion.
Like Maine Family Planning, Planned Parenthood has sued in an effort to restore reimbursements.
Planned Parenthood has said that up to 200 of its clinics might have to close because of the policy change. Some of its nearly 600 clinics have already shut down. In the past week, its Wisconsin affiliate announced that it would stop providing abortion, and the Arizona one took the opposite approach, saying it would halt Medicaid-funded services.
Julia Kehoe, president and CEO of Health Imperatives, which serves about 10,000 patients a year in southeastern Massachusetts, said her organization didn’t realize it was losing Medicaid reimbursements until the government said it was in an August legal filing.
She said the she believed the seven clinics in her group were safe from the cuts because they are not primarily a reproductive health organization. The cuts could mean a loss of about $1.8 million a year.
Instead of changing service offerings, Health Imperatives is working on getting additional state funding and donations to make up the difference – and more – with the aim of increasing access to health care.
Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Originally Published: October 1, 2025 at 2:52 PM CDT