Writing and Submitting Obituaries to The Sun Herald
The Sun Herald runs obituaries for people in the local area, and getting one published is straightforward if you know what they want. Their main page for this is called The Sun Heralds Obituary Legacy Honoring The Lives Of Local Heroes And History Makers, and it's basically a digital archive of past pieces alongside a submission portal. I've submitted probably a dozen over the years, some for neighbors, some for family. Here's how the actual process works. You go to their website and find the obituary section. They accept submissions online, but they also take them by email or phone if you're struggling with the form. The standard length is around 300 to 500 words. Anything longer gets charged extra or asked to be trimmed. They run a fee too, somewhere between $100 and $200 depending on length and whether you want a photo included. Photos usually cost an additional $50 to $75. I learned the hard way that the photo file requirements are strict. They want high-resolution images, at least 300 DPI, and typically in JPEG or TIFF format. The first time I submitted, I attached a phone picture that was clearly fine on my device. They rejected it flat out. I had to resubmit with the actual camera file. Took me an hour to track it down. Now I just make sure I'm sending the full-resolution original from day one.
The submission form asks for the basic stuff: full name, age, city, date of death, and a short biographical sketch. They also want surviving family members listed, usually immediate family. Some people like to include predeceased relatives too, and that's fine as long as it's not a massive list. The editor will cut it down if needed. One thing nobody tells you upfront is that they often edit obituaries for content. I wrote one once that was fairly detailed, covering the person's career, military service, and a paragraph about their volunteer work. They ran a version that was about half the length. It still read fine, but it felt like a lot of useful context got stripped out. The workaround I found is to put the most essential details in the first two paragraphs. Whatever's there survives editing. Stuff deeper in the body is fair game for the chop. Turnaround time is usually one to three business days from submission to publication, assuming everything checks out. If you need it faster, call the office directly. I once had a situation where a death happened on a Thursday and the family wanted the notice in the Saturday paper. Calling the desk and explaining the timeline got it prioritized. Without that call, it would have run Monday at the earliest.
They do publish free death notices for residents, which are shorter and less detailed than full obituaries. These usually just state the name, age, date of death, and which funeral home is handling arrangements. If money is tight, this is a perfectly acceptable alternative. It still shows up in the paper and online, so the information gets out there. A couple of practical things to keep in mind. Double-check the spelling of every name, especially extended family. Typos in obituaries are common complaints from readers, and while the paper will run a correction, it's not ideal during an already stressful time. Also confirm the exact date format they prefer. Some newspapers like MM/DD/YYYY and others want Month DD, YYYY. Getting this right avoids back-and-forth with the staff. If the deceased lived out of state but had strong ties to the area, mention that. The Sun Herald tends to prioritize local connections, and making that case early helps. I had one case where someone spent forty years in the community but had moved away in their final years. Framing the submission around those local roots made a real difference in how it was received and how much space was allocated.
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