From time to time we like to feature businesses who for some reason or other have an interesting story to tell.  Today, we bring you the story of the Shafer Monument Company of Mitchell, South Dakota.

As we move into the 2nd half of 2019 the Shafer family is celebrating their 100th year of business.  A business where they create monuments for individuals laid to rest in cemeteries.  The family is in their 5th and 6th generation of monument creators at this time and creates about 150 monuments per year.

Congratulations to the Shafers.  You can read about their story here.

Update on the upcoming Supreme Court funeral case:  After we mentioned the Harris Funeral Home case that will be heard before the Supreme Court this coming fall, we had a couple of readers ask if we could find out more about the case.  Here is a recent article on the case and why many believe that this case, of what I call about “dress code”, may determine what United States businesses may be required to use as a definition of “gender” or “sex” of employees.

This article also points out that over 200 of America’s biggest businesses have filed briefs to the Supreme Court opposing the funeral home’s side in the issue.  Among these companies are Amazon, Best Buy, Coca Cola, Walt Disney, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, and Nike.  Their briefs indicate that among other things, that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act mandates against sexual discrimination, even to the point of “gender identity”.

The above referenced article gives a lot more information on the case, including appellate decisions, that we had not previously provided our readers.

Update on the Sunset Mesa case in Colorado:  Those of you familiar with this case know that it involves the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home of Montrose, Colorado, where the owner, Megan Hess, also operated Donor Services, Inc., a non-transplant tissue bank.  During an FBI investigation, that is still on-going, it has been  alleged that deceased humans put into Sunset Mesa’s care for cremation had, in many instances, their body parts sold without the knowledge or permission of the relatives.

The investigation has revealed that many relatives received cement powder rather than human remains in the cremation containers that they were presented from the funeral home following what they believed was the cremation process.

This article gives more background and also notes that the nine plaintiffs have now amended their civil lawsuit to include a cremation society that made use of the Sunset Mesa crematory.  Plaintiffs now allege that the cremation society should have known about the alleged abuse of corpses at the crematory.

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