Your Clifton Park & Halfmoon has done a nice feature about Kathleen Lowes Sanvidge, the owner of Townley and Wheeler funeral home in Ballston Lake, New York. Sandvidge has been certified as a Women Business Enterprise in New York. Her firm is the only certified women-owned funeral home in New York State. Funeral Director’s take: Interesting to see that Lowes Sanvidge uses mainly Facebook to stay in touch with clients and meet clients. A social media strategy is critical if you […]
We noticed a number of items in the litigation section of the Service Corporation International 2016 Annual Report. Our purpose in listing the claims is not to point fingers. SCI has had several of the claims dismissed and we are in no position to evaluate the validity of the claims. We’ve decided to list the claims, however, because they provide a sample of the typical legal risks which a funeral home owner may run. Our analysis is in italics. […]
Ever wonder what the future of the small-town 30 call firm is. When I started in the funeral business in 1980 in a regional center type of community – 30,000 population – we served an area about 15 miles around us. Outside of that 15 mile radius there were several small communities that each had its own 30 call mortuary. Think about it, in a small community, with very little cost of doing business, and a low-key life style the […]
The Huffington Post has an outstanding post by funeral director Shannon Burberry titled “What Working With Death Can Teach You About Living.” Burberry is a Funeral Home Manager at Arbor Memorial in Ontario, Canada. Simple lessons but true: Our goodbyes are just as important as hellos. One size doesn’t fit all. Technology connects the disconnected. Time is a gift.
After operating the Brenneman Funeral Home and Cremation Services in Liberal, Kansas, for 17 years, Rick and Mellissa Brenneman sold the business to employee Mike Hornung and his wife Kelly effective January 31. Mike, who formerly worked with the Archdiocese of Denver Mortuary, graduated from Arapahoe Community College Mortuary Arts program and has worked at Brenneman Funeral Home and Cremation Services for over one year. Kelly is the daughter of Colorado funeral director and present NFDA Treasurer Chuck Bowman. According […]
The US Census surveys the funeral industry every five years. The next census will take place later this year. Here is the data on US revenues and employment in the Cemetary, Crematory and Funeral Home industries for 1997-2012. Funeral Director Daily take: The drop in cemetery and crematory staff of almost 46% in fifteen years is probably indicative of the rise in cremation and drop in full-body earth burial nationwide. The relative static employment numbers of people in the funeral […]
The National Directory of Morticians Redbook reports that the number of of US funeral homes declined by one tenth of one percent during 2017 as you can see from the following table. The number of US funeral homes has declined by approximately 1%/year since 2004. 86% or 16,617 of the 19,322 funeral homes in the US funeral homes were privately owned.
NJ.com and patch.com report that a licensed funeral director Justin Wild has sued his former employer Feeney Funeral Home in Ridgewood NJ after he was fired for using medicinal marijuana to remediate cancer symptoms. After the funeral home learned that Wild has a prescription for using medicinal marijuana after he got in a car accident, the funeral home ordered a drug test and terminated Wild when he failed the test. Funeral Director Daily’s Take: This kind of case will […]
Bonney-Watson funeral home, Seattle’s oldest continuously operating business has announced it is listing its 14,000 square foot property and 20,000 square foot parking lot on Broadway Avenue for sale for $7.8 million. The site represents one of the few key development properties available in Seattle. Leader and Times reports that Mike and Kelly Hornung have assumed ownership of Brenneman Funeral Home and Cremation Services in Liberal, Kansas. Melissa and Risk Brenneman were the sellers. Fox 29 news and WTAE reports that […]
WWMT.com, the Telegraph and the Daily Star report that funeral directors are telling people not to take selfies at funerals. The most famous abuse of this practice was when Prime Minister Cameron, Barack Obama and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidts took a selfie at Nelson Mandala’s memorial service. NPR reports that funeral prices aren’t transparent despite the FTC funeral rule. Federal regulators shopping undercover have found that 1 in 4 funeral homes break the rule and fail to disclose price information.
