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 SOPHIE BATES, Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Police on Tuesday were investigating the death of a Black college student found hanging from a tree on the campus of Delta State University in Mississippi, stirring online rumors that evoked the state’s history of Jim Crow-era racist violence even as authorities said there was no initial evidence of a crime.
The campus police chief said there are no signs of foul play in the death of the 21-year-old student, whose body was discovered by a staff member early Monday near the campus pickleball courts.
Delta State Police Chief Michael Peeler said there was also no evidence of an ongoing threat to students and faculty. He told reporters Monday the death investigation was being assisted by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation as well as local police and sheriff’s deputies.
A woman who answered the phone at the campus police department on Tuesday said the agency had no further information to release.
Online rumors that the student was found with broken limbs were disputed by Bolivar County Coroner Randolph Seals Jr. In a statement cited by local news outlets, Seals said his office conducted a preliminary examination and concluded the student did not suffer any lacerations, contusions, compound fractures, broken bones or injuries consistent with an assault.
The coroner did not immediately return phone messages Tuesday from The Associated Press.
Attempts to reach the student’s family weren’t immediately successful. A woman identifying herself as a cousin told the AP in an online message that the family wasn’t speaking to reporters. Two others who said they were distant relatives declined to comment when reached by phone.
In a video posted Tuesday to the university’s Facebook page, Delta State President Dan Ennis said the university was resuming operations while continuing to mourn. He said campus officials were staying in touch with the student’s family.
“We know that we can never fully heal this wound,” Ennis said. “We continue to cooperate with investigators. We continue to make sure that all the information necessary is given to authorities. And we continue to hope for answers.”
Classes were canceled Monday at the university, as were events to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its opening as Delta State Teachers College in September 1925.
Located in the heart of the Mississippi Delta near the Arkansas state line, Delta State had a fall 2024 enrollment of more than 2,600 students, 42% of them Black.
Numerous social media posts about the case evoked a darker period in U.S. history when killings of Black people, almost exclusively at the hands of white male vigilantes, inflicted racial terror in Mississippi and other parts of the Deep South.
The Delta State campus in Cleveland is located only about 30 miles from a site closely associated with the infamous lynching of Emmett Till. A sign at the Tallahatchie River landing near Glendora commemorates the discovery 70 years ago of Till’s mutilated body in the water.
AP journalist Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed.
Originally Published: September 16, 2025 at 3:16 PM CDT