Submitting Obituaries to the Urbana Daily Citizen: A Practical Guide
The Urbana Daily Citizen runs one of the more established obituary sections in Champaign County, Illinois. If you're trying to place a notice for someone who lived in or around Urbana, Champaign, Rantoul, or the surrounding areas, this is the paper most people actually read for that information. The process is straightforward once you know the quirks. I've handled enough of these over the years to save you some time. The newspaper accepts obituary submissions through multiple channels, but the most reliable path is going directly through their classifieds department. You can call 217-367-4421 to reach the ad desk, or you can use their online portal at urbanadailycitizen.com under the classifieds section. They publish obituaries both in the print edition and on their website, and the two are essentially the same content run simultaneously. Pricing is where most people get confused. As of my last check, the Daily Citizen charges by the word for standard obituaries, with a minimum of roughly 150 words. The current rate sits around $4 to $5 per word, which means a typical 200-word obituary runs about $800 to $1,000 for print placement. Online-only submissions are cheaper, usually a flat fee in the $150 to $250 range, but they come with significantly less visibility. Most families in this area still want print coverage because that's what older relatives actually look at. The website version is more of a supplement than a replacement.
Here is something most people miss: you can submit a longer obituary to the website first and then reference it in a shorter paid print version. The Daily Citizen allows a condensed print listing that links to the full online version. This cuts your print cost down substantially while still giving people access to the complete biography, photos, and service details online. I've used this workaround at least half a dozen times for families who wanted thorough notices but didn't want to pay per-word rates for everything. Turnaround time is usually one to two business days for standard submissions. If you need something run urgently, they do offer expedited processing, but that carries an additional charge and is not guaranteed to beat the next day's print deadline. The print edition hits the presses late afternoon the day before publication, so any submission that comes in after 2 PM on a business day typically rolls into the following issue unless you pay for rush handling. Photos are accepted and recommended, but there are specific requirements. The paper wants high-resolution JPEG or PNG files, ideally at least 300 DPI for print quality. Send a tiny compressed image and it will print out grainy and unusable. Email the file directly to their classifieds department with the obituary text in the body of the email or attached as a separate document. Do not embed the photo inside a Word file expecting it to come through cleanly. I learned that the hard way on a Friday evening when a family needed a photo included by Monday's edition and spent three hours trying to resend it properly.
Another edge case worth noting: if the deceased served in the military, you absolutely should include that information in the original submission. The Daily Citizen sometimes runs a separate military honors section or flags veteran notices, and if you don't mention rank, branch, and years of service up front, that detail gets lost. You can always add it later, but it moves to the back of the queue and might not make the same print edition. I always tell people to draft the military service line first before anything else in the obituary. Proofreading is critical. Once a notice goes to print, corrections are expensive. A single character error runs about $25 per occurrence, and if the mistake is substantive, they may require a full re-run at the original price. I have seen dates swapped, misspelled names of surviving family members, and wrong cemetery locations published. The proof you receive before publication is your only chance to catch these things. Read it twice. Have two other people read it too. The deadline for proof approval is usually noon on the business day before the paper goes to press, so do not wait until the last hour. If the person who died was a notable community figure, the paper may approach you about a more extensive feature-style obituary rather than a standard classified notice. This is not something you need to request, but it is worth being aware of. These pieces are written by the staff and run with more space and often an accompanying photograph. They are free, but they also mean giving up some control over the wording and length.
Get the Full Details
The main limitation of the Daily Citizen for obituaries is geographic. It covers Champaign County well, but if the deceased lived in Macon, DeWitt, Vermilion, or Piatt counties, readers in those areas may never see the notice. For those situations, the Champaign Urban League or the Decatur Herald Courier might be worth considering as secondary publications. Both carry obituary sections and cover overlapping but distinct audiences. Running in both papers doubles your cost but also doubles the chance that distant relatives find out in time to attend services. For people who need help writing the actual obituary text, the Daily Citizen does not provide a writing service, but their ad desk can help format what you give them. Bring them bullet points, key dates, surviving family names, and service details. They will structure it into a proper obituary format. This is useful if you are dealing with grief and cannot stomach the task of drafting the text yourself. They are not sympathetic about deadlines though. Show up prepared. Subscription to the paper is not required to place an obituary. Anyone can pay for the notice regardless of whether they receive the Daily Citizen. However, subscribing to the paper after placement does help ensure the notice stays accessible longer through their archival system, and subscribers sometimes get discounts on certain classified placements depending on the current rate card.
The simplest path for most families is this: gather the essential facts, decide whether you want print, online, or both, get a high-quality photo, draft the text with military and affiliation details included upfront, submit through the online portal or by phone, and then carefully review the proof before the noon cutoff. The whole process takes roughly 30 to 45 minutes of active work spread over a couple of days. Rushing it produces errors. Skipping the proofread produces regrets.
