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 ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House stood behind “border czar” Tom Homan on Monday following reports that he had accepted $50,000 from undercover agents posing as businesspeople during an undercover FBI operation last year, leading to a bribery investigation that was shut down by the Trump administration Justice Department.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt characterized Homan’s encounter with the undercover agents as an effort by the Biden administration to “entrap one of the president’s top allies and supporters, someone who they knew very well would be taking a government position.”
“The White House and the president stand by Tom Homan 100% because he did absolutely nothing wrong, and he is a brave public servant who has done a phenomenal job in helping the president shut down the border,” she said.
MSNBC first reported Saturday that Homan had accepted the cash during a 2024 encounter with undercover agents who were posing as businesspeople seeking government contracts that Homan suggested he could help them get in a second Trump term. Two people familiar with the investigation, who were not authorized to discuss a sensitive law enforcement inquiry by name, confirmed details of it to The Associated Press on Monday.
The Trump administration Justice Department, which shut down the probe, said the matter was “subjected to a full review,” but authorities found “no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.” Without providing evidence, the White House criticized the Biden administration investigation as politically motivated.
“The Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people, not baseless investigations,” FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “As a result, the investigation has been closed.”
Leavitt insisted to reporters during a briefing Monday that Homan “never took the $50,000 you’re referring to,” though she did not elaborate what she meant.
The revelation has sparked fresh concerns about political interference in Justice Department matters at a time Trump’s calls for prosecutions of his adversaries is testing the law enforcement agency’s long tradition of independence when it comes to prosecutorial decision-making. Trump escalated his pressure campaign on the Justice Department over the weekend, publicly calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi to move forward with cases against New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff.
“See what happened to Tom Homan, his border czar, who literally accepted a bag of cash —$50,000 — and the investigation was dropped once Trump became president,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said on ABC News. “There are just two standards of justice now in this country. If you are a friend of the president, a loyalist of the president you can get away with nearly anything … but if you are an opponent of the president, you may find yourself in jail.”
Homan came under Justice Department scrutiny after a target of a separate investigation suggested Homan was soliciting bribes, one of the people who confirmed details of the investigation told the AP. A second person said law enforcement officials had had internal discussions dating back to last year about the strength of a potential bribery case and the relevant laws that might come into play.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Homan “has not been involved with any contract award decisions.”
“This blatantly political investigation, which found no evidence of illegal activity, is yet another example of how the Biden Department of Justice was using its resources to target President Trump’s allies rather than investigate real criminals and the millions of illegal aliens who flooded our country,” Jackson said in a statement.
Homan has been a key figure behind Trump’s hardline immigration policies and deportation efforts, serving as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the first Trump administration. Shortly after Trump’s presidential victory in November, the president announced that Homan would serve as “border czar” in the incoming administration.
Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report.
Originally Published: September 22, 2025 at 3:27 PM CDT