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.
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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)
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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 CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-McLAY and JIM MUSTIAN, Associated Press
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — On a visit to New Zealand, FBI Director Kash Patel gave the country’s police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed, New Zealand law enforcement agencies told The Associated Press.
The plastic 3D-printed replica pistols formed part of display stands Patel presented to at least three senior New Zealand security officials in July. Patel, the most senior Trump administration official to visit the country so far, was in Wellington to open the FBI’s first standalone office in New Zealand.
Pistols are tightly restricted weapons under New Zealand law and possessing one requires an additional permit beyond a regular gun license. Law enforcement agencies didn’t specify whether the officials who met with Patel held such permits, but they couldn’t have legally kept the gifts if they didn’t.
It wasn’t clear what permissions Patel had sought to bring the weapons into the country. A spokesperson for Patel told the AP Tuesday that the FBI would not comment.
The pistols were surrendered and destroyed
Inoperable weapons are treated as though they’re operable in New Zealand if modifications could make them workable again. The pistols were judged by gun regulators to be potentially operable and were destroyed, New Zealand’s Police Commissioner Richard Chambers told AP in a statement Tuesday.
Chambers didn’t specify how the weapons had been rendered inoperable before Patel gifted them. Usually this means the temporary disabling of the gun’s firing mechanism.
Three of New Zealand’s most powerful law enforcement figures said they received the gifts at meetings July 31. Chambers was one recipient, and the other two were Andrew Hampton, director-general of the country’s human intelligence agency NZSIS, and Andrew Clark, director-general of the technical intelligence agency GCSB, according to a joint statement from their departments.
A spokesperson for the spy agencies described the gift as “a challenge coin display stand” that included the 3D-printed inoperable weapon “as part of the design.” The officials sought advice on the gifts the next day from the regulator that enforces New Zealand’s gun laws, Chambers said.
When the weapons were examined, it was discovered they were potentially operable.
“To ensure compliance with firearms laws, I instructed Police to retain and destroy them,” Chambers said.
James Davidson, a former FBI agent who is now president of the FBI Integrity Project, a nonprofit that seeks to safeguard the bureau from undue partisan influence, has criticized Patel’s appointment.
But Davidson said the gift of the replica pistols appeared “a genuine gesture” from Patel and their destruction was “quite frankly, an overreaction by the NZSIS, which could have simply rendered the replica inoperable,” he said.
New Zealand has strong gun controls
3D-printed weapons are treated the same as other guns in New Zealand. The country bolstered its gun restrictions following a 2019 white supremacist attack on two mosques in the city of Christchurch, when 51 Muslim worshipers were shot dead by an Australian man who had amassed a cache of semiautomatic weapons legally.
The guns Patel gifted to the law enforcement chiefs were not semiautomatic models now prohibited after the Christchurch massacre. But there are a suite of other reasons New Zealanders might not legally be able to possess certain weapons, including the specific permits required for pistols.
New Zealand doesn’t have a passionate culture of gun ownership and the weapons have been viewed more dimly since the mass shooting. Gun ownership is enshrined in New Zealand law as a privilege, not a right.
The country isn’t short on guns; they’re common in rural areas for pest control. But violent gun crime is rare and many urban residents might never have even seen a firearm in person.
It’s uncommon even to see police officers carrying weapons. Front-line officers aren’t usually armed on patrol and leave their weapons locked in their vehicles.
Patel caused discomfort with China remarks
News of Patel’s visit caused ripples in New Zealand at the time because the opening of the new FBI office in Wellington wasn’t divulged to news outlets or the public until it had already happened. An FBI statement in July said the move aligned New Zealand with FBI missions in other Five Eyes intelligence-sharing nations, which also include the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.
The office would provide a local mission for FBI staff who have operated with oversight from Canberra, Australia, since 2017, the statement said.
Public records disclosed to local news outlets this month revealed that Patel met with and dined with a more than a dozen senior public servants and elected officials, including Cabinet ministers, during his visit. It wasn’t immediately clear Tuesday how many officials received the pistols as gifts.
Patel had already provoked mild diplomatic discomfort in Wellington by suggesting in remarks supplied to reporters that the new FBI office aimed to counter China’s influence in the South Pacific Ocean, where New Zealand is located. The comments prompted polite dismissal from officials in Wellington, who said the bolstered FBI presence was primarily to collaborate on child exploitation and drug smuggling crimes. Beijing decried Patel’s remarks.
Mustian reported from New York. Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker contributed from Washington.
Originally Published: September 30, 2025 at 11:52 AM CDT