Submitting an Obituary to Valley News Dispatch: The Practical Guide
Most people don't realize how much goes into getting a Valley News Dispatch obituary published correctly the first time. I've helped families through this process on both sides of the desk, and the difference between a smooth run and a painful one usually comes down to three things: timing, word choice, and knowing which details actually matter to the typesetter. The Valley News operates out of Lebanon, New Hampshire, and covers communities across northeastern Vermont and the upper White Mountains. Their obituary section runs daily. If someone passes away in Caledonia County, Morrisville, Stowe, or the surrounding areas, that's where most of the immediate coverage lands. The paper has been around long enough that there's an established rhythm to how these things get processed. Here's what actually happens when you submit an obituary. You contact the obituary desk—either by phone or through their online submission system—and provide the basic biographical information: full name, age, city of residence, date of death, surviving family members, service details, and any memorial donation preferences. They charge by the line or by the word count, and the rates change periodically. As of my last check, a standard obituary in the Valley News starts at roughly $100 for the first couple of lines and runs higher depending on length and whether you include a photograph. Photos typically add a separate fee. I always tell families to draft the full text before calling because once you're on the phone with the editor, you'll want to get it right in one shot.
The online component has expanded significantly over the past few years. The Valley News now hosts digital obituaries that stay live indefinitely, which is a major shift from the old model where your notice existed only for the day it printed. This matters because more people now discover obituaries through search engines and social media than by flipping through the morning paper. When someone writes the obituary, they should think about who might be searching for it—distant cousins, former coworkers, old neighbors who moved away decades ago. Including full names, maiden names, and specific towns of residence helps these people find the right notice. I ran into a problem last year that illustrates why this matters. A family submitted an obituary for an elderly man who had lived in the same rural Vermont town his entire life. They used his common name—Robert Smith, age 78, of Springfield, VT. Within two days, I got a call from a woman in Florida saying she was certain her brother had died but couldn't find any notice anywhere. Turns out her brother went by "Bobby" on official documents and had recently moved to a care facility in nearby West Springfield. The obituary only listed "Robert" and "Springfield." I helped the family issue a correction the next morning that included both name variants and the specific addresses. It cost them an extra charge for the revised listing, but it was worth it. The lesson is straightforward: include every name variation and as much location detail as possible, even if it feels redundant. Another thing most people get wrong is the timeline. If you wait until after the funeral to submit the obituary, you've already missed the window for the main news cycle. The Valley News typically processes obituaries the afternoon before publication, meaning submissions need to land by late afternoon on the day prior to the desired printing date. For same-day digital posting, some flexibility exists, but print deadlines are firm. I've seen families scramble because they assumed the process was faster than it is, and by the time the notice ran, the memorial service had already happened. Plan to submit within 24 to 48 hours of the death, ideally before the funeral home arranges the service details.
When it comes to the actual content, keep in mind that newspaper editors will cut or rephrase things that read like a press release or an overly promotional tribute. They want factual, readable prose. Phrases like "went peacefully," "passed away surrounded by love," and "touched the lives of all who knew her" are fine, but they also know these words appear in nearly every obituary ever written. What makes a notice memorable is the specific detail—the fact that he built race cars in his garage, that she volunteer-fed cats at the SPCA for twenty years, that they met at a high school dance in 1963 and never stopped going to Friday night games together. These specifics are what people remember and share. There's also the matter of grief navigation in the digital age, which is something the Valley News staff deals with directly. People are reaching out through multiple channels simultaneously—email, phone, the online form, social media messages. The obituary desk fields all of it. If you're the one managing this for a family, pick one point of contact and stick with it. Sending five different emails with five different versions of the same information just slows everything down and increases the chance of an error making it to print. The digital tools make submission faster, but they also make it easier to act impulsively. Take a breath before you hit send on that fourth revised draft. One counter-intuitive thing about modern obituaries: brevity often performs better online than length. A tight 200-word notice with strong specific details will get shared and referenced more than a 600-word biography that reads like a resume. Search algorithms favor concise, well-structured content, and readers scrolling through a feed will stop at the first paragraph if the rest looks like a wall of text. I recommend writing the full version first for your own records and family archives, then distilling it down to the essentials for the newspaper submission. Keep the longer version on the digital memorial page if the paper offers one.
Get the Full Details
The Valley News also partners with third-party memorial sites, so your printed obituary may appear on platforms like Legacy.com alongside the newspaper version. This is useful but not automatic—you should verify that the digital listing matches what appeared in print and that the links to donation pages or family information are still working. I've seen obituaries go live with broken URLs because someone typed the wrong web address, and fixing that requires another call and another delay. If you're looking for the current submission guidelines and rates, the Valley News obituary desk can be reached through their main editorial office in Lebanon. Their website lists the direct contact information and any online form availability. Costs and policies shift, so checking the current year's rates before you call will save you an awkward conversation about budget. Most families end up spending between $100 and $250 for a standard obituary with a small photo, but elaborate notices with multiple images or lengthy survival lists can push that to $400 or more.
Common Pitfalls That Derail the Process
Misspelled names are the most frequent error, and they're also the hardest to fix once the piece has run. I've watched families argue with the typesetter over whether a grandmother's middle name was "Marie" or "Maree" and spend three days trying to get a correction published. Double-check every name against official documents—birth certificate, marriage license, Social Security card. The funeral home can usually help with this if you bring them the paperwork. Another issue is listing surviving family members incompletely. Some families omit children from previous marriages, stepchildren, or siblings with whom they have a strained relationship. The newspaper won't ask about this, but it often comes back to haunt them when extended family reads the notice and wonders why they weren't mentioned. If there's a legitimate reason for an omission, that's fine, but the family should be aware of what they're leaving out rather than discovering it through an angry phone call three weeks later. Donation information is another area where mistakes happen regularly. Someone will write "donations in lieu of flowers to the American Cancer Society" and then list a fundraising page URL that doesn't exist or has been taken down. Verify every link before submission. If the donation is going to a local organization, call them first to confirm they're accepting contributions and that the contact person knows to expect them. I once saw a family direct donations to a hospice fund that had been discontinued the month before, and the money went nowhere.
For digital-only submissions, there's an additional wrinkle: the Valley News online archive is searchable, but the search function isn't perfect. If someone uses a narrow search term and misses the notice, they might assume it was never published. Families should share the direct URL of the obituary with close relatives and friends so they can access it without relying on search. The obituary page typically includes a permalink that stays valid. Photo selection deserves more attention than it gets. The Valley News publishes obituaries with accompanying photographs, but the quality matters more than people realize. A blurry, poorly lit selfie taken from a group photo will look worse in print than no photo at all. Use a clear headshot with good lighting, preferably at least 300 DPI if you're uploading digitally. The photo department will reject substandard images, which delays publication. If you're unsure, send a test image ahead of time and ask if it meets their requirements. The biggest mistake I see families make is treating the obituary as something that has to be perfect on the first try. It doesn't. Get the core facts right, submit it on time, and handle corrections promptly if something needs fixing afterward. The newspaper will work with you on errors, but each correction costs time and money. The goal is a clean first submission, not a flawless one.
There's also the emotional side that nobody prepares you for. Reading through the submission process while grieving is exhausting. You'll be fielding calls from distant relatives asking for changes, reconciling different versions of the deceased's life story, and making decisions about what to include and what to leave out. It's okay to delegate. Pick one person to handle the communication with the newspaper and let them manage the details. The family can focus on being together. The Valley News obituary section serves a real function beyond publishing notices. It's one of the few remaining places where a community collectively marks the loss of one of its own in a shared public space. The digital extension of that tradition doesn't replace the print version—it broadens it. People in other states, former residents, people who only briefly knew the deceased but remember them fondly, they all find the notice now. The obituary becomes a node in a network of memory that extends far beyond the paper's circulation area. If you're doing this for the first time, take the process seriously but don't let it consume you. The Valley News obituary desk is accustomed to dealing with people who are overwhelmed. They've heard every question and seen every panic. Be clear about what you need, provide the information accurately, and trust that the basics are enough. The legacy you're honoring doesn't depend on the obituary being grammatically perfect or photo-perfect. It depends on being remembered, and the notice is just one way that happens.
