Ebby, it isn't very common to find any free death notices (obituaries) any more. They're typically handled by the classified staff on larger papers. I worked at a weekly paper in Central Texas for a couple of years and I wrote a lot of obituaries. The information was sometimes provided by the funeral home, and was there to be improved on. At times I was called and people would dictate what they wanted then ask for help. Others had it all written and that was all that was needed. All paid for obituaries.

If we ran an article about a deceased community member that was because it was significant news, and it was treated like any other news story. There were a couple of times when photos I'd taken of community members and run in news stories were later requested by the family when the person died and they remembered it was a good photo. That was always a sad task, to followup on people I knew and reassign their photos.

SRS