Working with Runge Mortuary Obituary Submissions
I spent about four years helping families prepare obituaries for local funeral homes, including Runge. The actual process of getting one published through their system is straightforward once you know what to expect, but there are a few moving parts that catch people off guard. The obituary system at Runge Mortuary operates through their website and via phone intake. You can submit online through their obituary portal or call their main line and work directly with a staff member. Both methods produce the same result: a published obituary that appears on their website and is syndicated to local newspapers and their partnership platforms. Here's what most people don't figure out immediately. The online form looks deceptively simple, but it has mandatory fields and character limits that aren't always obvious until you hit submit and get an error. The free tier allows up to 500 words. Anything longer gets truncated or triggers a request to upgrade, which costs additional fees. I've seen families write elaborate life stories only to have them cut off mid-sentence because they didn't budget the word count properly.
My recommendation is to draft the full obituary in a text editor first, count the words, then paste it into the form. This alone saves probably twenty minutes of back-and-forth. The staff at Runge are generally helpful, but they handle a high volume of submissions, especially during busy periods. They're not going to sit and edit your obituary for you. You're responsible for getting it right before it goes live. If you catch an error after publication, you can request a correction, but there's usually a processing delay of a few hours to a business day. During weekends or holidays, that timeline stretches further. One specific edge case I ran into repeatedly involved military honors and veteran status. Runge's form has a checkbox for military service, but it doesn't automatically pull in your DD-214 details. If the deceased was a veteran, you need to manually include your branch, rank, years of service, and any awards you want listed. The staff won't add this information without your explicit confirmation. I learned this the hard way when a family submitted an obituary for their father, a Navy veteran, and only included "served in the Navy" without specifics. By the time we caught it, the obituary was already live and the newspaper had begun its print run. We had to pay a correction fee and wait for the next day's update. Always double-check the military section separately before hitting submit.
What to Include and What to Leave Out
A standard obituary at Runge typically covers: full legal name, age, city of residence, date of death, biographical highlights, surviving family members, predeceased family members, service details, and a preferred charity for memorials. That's the baseline structure. The counter-intuitive part is that the surviving family section is where most errors happen. People forget to list ex-spouses when they should, or they include living siblings they actually want mentioned. There's no automated fact-check here. You are the quality control. I usually suggest families designate one person to be the final reviewer, someone who has access to the complete family tree and can verify each name quickly. This prevents the awkward situation where a sibling finds out about an obituary after it's published because they weren't included. For service details, Runge publishes the full schedule: visitation times, funeral or memorial service, burial location, and any reception information. Make sure the dates and times are confirmed with the funeral director before you submit. I've seen obituaries go live with incorrect times because the family assumed the scheduled time versus what was actually confirmed. Even a one-hour discrepancy can cause real problems for attendees.
Get the Full Details
Photos are another area worth paying attention to. Runge accepts JPEG and PNG files up to 10MB. They don't do editing or retouching, so upload what you have. A blurry or poorly lit photo won't get rejected, but it will appear exactly as uploaded. If you want a better-quality image, fix it in an editor before submitting. Resolution matters more than you'd think on mobile devices, where most people read these now.
Costs and Timing
The free obituary listing at Runge includes the 500-word limit and one photo. Additional features cost extra: extended word counts, multiple photos, featured placement on the homepage, and syndication to partner newspapers beyond the default inclusion. A typical extended obituary with five photos and featured placement runs roughly between $150 and $300, depending on current pricing and package selection. Turnaround time is usually same-day if you submit during business hours. Submissions after hours or on weekends typically go live the next business day. If you need it published urgently due to an imminent service, calling the office directly is faster than the online form. Staff can prioritize your submission over the queue.
Limitations to Keep in Mind
The Runge obituary system isn't ideal if you need significant custom formatting. You can't control fonts, layouts, or sidebar elements. The template is fixed. If the family wants something unusual like a QR code linking to a memorial video, a donation pledge wall, or a custom layout with columns or images interspersed with text, this system won't support it. In those cases, some families create a separate memorial website and link to it from the Runge obituary instead. Another limitation is the lack of interactive features. You can't enable comments, guestbook entries, or flower delivery directly through the Runge platform. Those functions require third-party integrations or a separate memorial site. If keeping the obituary as a static announcement is all you need, Runge handles that fine. If you want a living memorial with ongoing contributions and messages, you'd be better served by a dedicated memorial platform alongside the obituary listing. The syndication reach is also limited to their partner network, which covers Central Texas publications primarily. If the deceased had connections outside that region, the obituary may not reach relevant audiences. In those situations, I've recommended publishing through Runge for local visibility and independently submitting to outlets in other markets where the family or the deceased had ties.
Final Practical Notes
Get a copy of the published obituary for your records before you close out the process. Screenshots work, but saving the live URL and printing a PDF gives you something durable. Families often need a copy for genealogy records, local history archives, or personal keepsakes years down the line. If you're helping multiple families through this, batching your submissions during a single work session is noticeably more efficient than handling them sporadically. Each submission requires gathering documents, verifying details, and confirming everything twice. Doing five at once in one sitting cuts the per-obituary time significantly compared to spreading them across different days.
