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.
The fraud continues at flood stage, with the governor, Tim Walz, and his agency heads expressing no more embarrassment or regret than they might for failing to set the table correctly for a picnic.
“We forgot the mustard, but steps have been taken to prevent forgetting mustard going forward.”
“Ketchup?”
“That too.”
More than $10 million has been fraudulently stolen from Housing Stabilization Services alone, a program developed by the Minnesota Department of Human Services to help people with disabilities in need, many of whom remain in need. We learn this the same week that Walz has made it public that he intends to seek an unprecedented third term in a row. It is perversely fascinating that Walz can receive a new report of fraud under his watch and then excuse himself to go play Regular Guy by patting the fender of his prop International Scout for a new campaign ad.
Mostly, Walz’s agency heads – he hired them – conveniently got a sail full of wind and disappeared when the going got too fraudy. Heather Mueller was the Department of Education commissioner, but when the food fraudsters claimed they were feeding 6,000 kids a day from a grimy storefront the size of her waiting room, she vanished.
Jodi Harpstead was commissioner of Human Services, but her agency was gushing money from a fire hose of fraud, autism care, day care, Medicaid, housing stabilization, and she vamoosed in February of this year, replaced by Shireen Gandhi.
Gandhi is a veteran of DHS and was for many years the budgeting and financial chief of the outfit. Gandhi has been visible and usually available for the cameras, offering nothing of substance except vowing not to forget the condiments the next time.
Some of Walz’s people are unlucky. Eric Grumdahl, an assistant commissioner in DHS whose responsibilities apparently included Housing Stabilization Services, apparently was fired, making him probably the first employee in the long Walz tenure of fraud to actually suffer a consequence.
In fact, Grumdahl was fired this past Tuesday, one day before DHS was to appear before the new Fraud Prevention Committee of the Minnesota House of Representatives. To Grumdahl’s presumed regret, he didn’t catch a gust and sail away like the others but is conveniently unavailable nonetheless.
“This is yet another example of DHS and the Walz administration dodging accountability for their failures,” Rep. Kristin Robbins, R-Maple Grove, the fraud committee’s chair, was quoted saying by Alpha News. “I would have expected Assistant Commissioner Grumdahl to attend the hearing and answer questions today, but DHS never intended for him to come.”
Having never stolen anything of taxpayer consequence, a pack of chewing gum once and a car tire, I can only offer an amateur’s theory on what happened to this once functioning state. COVID hit. Americans were essentially told to shut everything down. Stay at home. Don’t go to work. For God’s sake, don’t patronize a restaurant or small business. The government pumped money into new programs to make up for losses in services and income. It became a perfect storm of incompetent governments flush with cash. When fraudsters realized they could get money by claiming to feed children, they were on that like ants on spilled sugar. New scams developed overnight, all seemingly competing to top the food fraud scam, which is nearly at $250 million stolen and the trials not near completion. It was as hedonistic as lighting cigars with $100 bills. The U.S. attorney has estimated the total amount of fraud under investigation could total $1 billion.
Are our government employees in on it? Are they crooks, too? Does it go to the top? Probably not, although, gratefully, we are fated to find out because acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson is just getting warmed up. It’s more likely that our worthies were overmatched, bamboozled, tricked, conned, duped, bilked, fleeced, swindled and hoodwinked. If they were hockey players, the fraudsters undressed them with the spin-o-rama move.
And the impossibly obtuse man in charge actually believes he deserves a third turn.
Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic’’ podcast can be heard at garagelogic.com.