How to Submit an Obituary to Times News of Lehighton
Obituaries in local papers like the Times News of Lehighton aren't just announcements. They're usually the most read piece in the paper that week. Getting one right matters more than most people expect. Here's how the process actually works when you're dealing with the Times News obituary desk. The basic mechanism is straightforward but there are enough moving parts that a sloppy submission can cost you time, money, or both. The Times News operates on a strict submission schedule. Obituaries for Thursday's edition typically need to be in by Tuesday afternoon. Miss that window and your piece either gets pushed to next week or printed in a smaller section where fewer people see it. I learned this the hard way in 2019 when a family I was helping submitted their draft Wednesday morning for a Thursday print run. The editor had to hold it, and the obit ended up running in the Friday community section instead of the main paper. Nobody noticed the difference, but the family felt invisible. There are two types of content you can submit. A death notice is short. It states the facts: name, age, date of death, surviving family, funeral home, and service information. These are cheaper because they run by the word or line. An obituary is longer. It's a full narrative that usually runs between 300 and 800 words. Some papers charge by the line for obituaries too, so length directly affects cost. The Times News has varying rates depending on whether you include photographs and how many.
The most important step before you write anything is picking up the current rate sheet and editorial guidelines. These change. Fees shift annually. Word counts get revised. The Times News publishes its submission requirements on their website under the obituaries or community section. Read it. Then read it again. Everything I'm about to say is based on typical practices, but the exact rules belong to them. When you're writing the actual piece, most families start by copying a template they found online. Don't. The Times News editor who reads these every day can tell when something was copy-pasted. Templates also tend to produce obituaries that sound the same: born, married, worked at, survived by. A better approach is to sit down with the family and ask specific questions. What did this person do on a normal Tuesday? What was their actual job, not just the title? Which of their hobbies actually mattered to them? One detail from that conversation beats three paragraphs of generic praise. I once worked with a family who wanted to list their father as a retired mechanic. When I asked what he actually repaired, they said he fixed school buses for the local district for thirty-two years. That detail changed the entire obituary. It grounded it. Readers from the community recognized it immediately. Listing him as a general mechanic made him anonymous. Specificity is what makes an obituary useful to the people who actually knew the deceased.
Photographs are another area where people waste money. You don't need a professional portrait. A clear, well-lit photo from a phone camera works fine. The Times News needs a high-resolution image, ideally 300 DPI or higher. If you submit a compressed JPEG from a social media post, the editor will likely ask for a better file or run the text without a photo, which reduces engagement significantly. Send the original file, not a screenshot. Proofreading obituaries is where most mistakes happen. Not because the writing is bad, but because people skip over their own text too quickly. Have someone who wasn't involved in writing it read the final draft aloud. Missing dates, misspelled names of survivors, incorrect funeral home addresses — these are common errors that take seconds to fix but cause real problems if they make it to print. A wrong date on an obituary isn't just a typo. It becomes part of the permanent record. Timing your submission matters more than people realize. If someone dies on a Monday, the obituary for that Thursday edition is nearly impossible to complete properly. You're working with grief, phone calls, funeral arrangements, and a tight deadline all at once. The best strategy is to submit a death notice on short notice while you draft the full obituary for a later edition. The Times News usually accepts both. This way you get immediate recognition in print and still have time to write something worth reading.
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There are limitations to this approach that nobody talks about enough. Local newspapers like the Times News have been shrinking their obituary staff. Many are now relying more on automated submission systems and less on editors who craft individual pieces. This means less personal interaction with the desk, which sounds efficient but removes a safety net. If you're unsure about tone, length, or formatting, calling the newsroom directly during business hours is still the most reliable way to get help. The email forms and web portals don't catch problems. Cost is another factor. A standard obituary in the Times News can range anywhere from $150 to $400 or more depending on length and photos. Death notices are cheaper but add up if you run them multiple times. Some families publish the same notice in several nearby papers. That works, but each submission requires a separate process and separate payment. Keep track of which papers you've submitted to. Redundancy in obituaries isn't a flaw, but paying twice for the same content in adjacent markets is. If the Times News isn't reaching the audience you need, consider supplementary options. Legacy.com often carries obituaries from local papers and makes them searchable nationally. Funeral homes frequently offer obituary writing services for a fee, though the quality varies enormously. Some families use a combination: the local paper for the community that mattered most, plus an online version for friends and extended family who live elsewhere.
The process itself usually takes about an hour from start to finish once you have your information organized. Gathering the facts — dates, names, relationships, service details — is the part that takes longer, usually 30 to 45 minutes of phone calls and notes. Writing the draft another 20 to 30 minutes. Proofreading and final submission another 15. Total active time is under two hours. Most of the delay comes from waiting on family members to confirm names and spellings, not from the actual writing. A few specific details that trip people up regularly. Maiden names need to be included for women who changed their surnames, and both names should appear in order. Military service should use the correct branch designation and discharge status if the family wants it noted. Precursor phrases like "passed away peacefully surrounded by family" are fine but overused. Editors don't mind them, but they also don't add anything. A single concrete detail about how someone spent their last days carries more weight than a generic closing statement. Finally, keep a copy of everything you submit. The printed obituary is a permanent document that people reference for genealogy and family records. Save the digital version, the proof the paper sent you, and the receipt for payment. Five years from now, when a cousin asks exactly when grandpa died or where the service was held, that copy is worth more than the memory of having sent it in the first place.
