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.
Ta’Shawn Burks often walked to see friends and family, finding joy in those quiet, simple moments, his mother told the court Monday.
Burks was doing just that on July 11, 2023, in St. Paul’s Summit-University, when, “in an instant, everything changed,” Tamera Burks, his mother, said.
As the 31-year-old was crossing Concordia Avenue at Dale Street around 9:45 p.m., Abdirahman Ali Hassan saw a yellow light, gunned his sedan and plowed into him at 77 mph. Burks, of St. Paul, died at the scene.
“Since that day, our family has been left shattered,” his mother said at Hassan’s sentencing.
Judge DeAnne Hilgers gave Hassan, 21, of St. Paul, a 364-day term in the workhouse, a sentence that’s more than double what had been agreed upon as part of an April plea agreement.
After his plea to criminal vehicular homicide, Hassan missed a date for his presentence investigation. On Aug. 14, he was cited for careless driving and speeding for allegedly going 102 mph on Interstate 35W near Lyndale Avenue in south Minneapolis.
“I do not believe you understand the ramifications of your actions, and I don’t believe you’ve come to grips with them,” Hilgers told him. “You will not receive the benefit of the plea agreement because you have twice violated that agreement.”
He’ll get credit for three days already served in custody.
Court records show Hassan was convicted of speeding a month before the fatal crash. New Brighton police clocked him driving 90 mph in a 60 mph zone on the entrance ramp to Interstate 694 from Silver Lake Road.
Hassan was ‘covered in glass and blood splatter’
St. Paul police officers were called to the St. Paul intersection on a report of a hit-and-run involving a pedestrian. They found Burks motionless on Concordia Avenue approximately 100 feet east of Dale Street.
Witnesses told officers that a white car drove through the intersection heading east on Concordia Avenue at a high rate of speed.
One witness said they were stopped at a red light heading south on Dale Street and that Burks was walking north against the traffic light, according to the criminal complaint. Burks was halfway across Concordia Avenue when the witness heard a vehicle’s engine rev up and then saw a white sedan hit Burks, who went airborne. The driver did not stop.
While officers were securing the scene they learned the driver had stopped less than a mile away at Carroll Avenue and Arundel Street. Officers located a white Hyundai Sonata with heavy front-end damage and a damaged windshield. The driver, identified as Hassan, was in a “state of shock and had a blank stare on his face,” the complaint says, adding that he was “covered in glass and blood splatter.”
Hassan’s mother identified her son to police “since he was unable to talk at that time” and said he had called her crying and in shock and that she met him there, the complaint says. Hassan was transported to a hospital, and later declined to speak to police about the crash.
A blood draw showed that Hassan did not have alcohol or drugs in his system.
Investigators obtained a search warrant and removed the Sonata’s electronic data recorder for crash analysis. It showed Hassan’s speed continually increased after he got off I-94 and that he “unsuccessfully tried to make a green light at the intersection” and hit Burks. The complaint does not clearly state who had the right of way at the time of the crash.
The data showed the car’s speed was 62.8 mph five seconds before the crash and 77.7 mph at the time of impact. The speed limit on Concordia Avenue is 25 mph.
‘Make some serious changes’
Judge Hilgers gave Hassan the longest workhouse sentence she could without sending him to prison. She stayed a four-year prison term for five years of probation.
Hilgers pointed out to Hassan that he cannot have any traffic violations while on probation.
“And to make that clear, a speeding ticket could put you in prison,” she said. “So take this opportunity to make some serious changes, changes that can honor who you can be, and that will honor who Ta’Shawn was and who he could have been.”