Obituary Committee

Step 1 - Find notices of death

There are several sources for these notices, but the following two computer searches are probably the most useful.

ObitMessenger

ObitMessenger is a free email notification service that uses keywords provided by you to locate new obituaries of your choice. ObitMessenger searches paid obituaries and death notices published online by Legacy.com's more than 900 ObitMessenger newspaper affiliates. If an obituary matching any of your keywords is found, a portion of the obituary with a link to access the full notice will be sent to you at the e-mail address you supply during sign up.

To use ObitMessenger

1. Sign up for at account at https://www.legacy.com/obit-messenger.
2. Select the frequency of alerts – choose daily.
3. Select the newspapers you want searched. At a minimum select the Arizona Republic and Arizona Daily Star (Tucson).
4. Establish the selection criteria using quotes around each criterion and making all the criteria “ors”. The minimum set of criteria are:
   1. “ASU”
   2. “Arizona State University”
   3. “A.S.U.”
   4. “Arizona State”
   5. (optional) “Sun Devil”
5. If more than one volunteer is involved, each volunteer can take a different set of days or alternative weeks, etc. It is useful to set up a way for each volunteer to let the others know what obituaries they are processing.

PBI Research Services

PBI Research Services uses artificial intelligence, integrated databases, and human expertise to find notices of death. The results are posted weekly (Thursday). This service is used by the Foundation which can give our volunteers permission to get weekly reports.

To get access to PBI Research Services, one committee member will need to contact the Foundation to request access:

1. Access to PBI Research is granted via the ASU Foundation Gift Administration and Data Management.
2. Contact (and let them know whom you are replacing): Billie (BJ) Hanson, Data Management Specialist, Office of Gift Administration and Data; Billie.J.Hanson@asu.edu , and/or 
3. Cheryl O’Toole Cheryl.OToole@asu.edu, Senior Director, Gift Administration & Data Management.

Other possible sources

1. ASU Insight - weekly email (an article/obituary is usually at the end of the email).
2. Communication from a bereaved family member - often communicated to ASURA office.
3. Communication from other ASURA members.

Step 2 - Selecting appropriate obituaries

Not all obituaries from the computer-generated searches will be appropriate. Since the results are electronic the obituaries can be searched using your computer (CTRL-f will bring up a search box on PCs).

The two things to search for are:

1. Is it really Arizona State University and not Appalachian State U or Arkansas State U or Alabama State U, etc.
2. Does it meet the following selection criteria (which are subject to modification)
   1. People associated with ASU (some time ASU employees or who had another significant (non-student) connection to ASU)
   2. Spouse/partner/immediate family member of an ASU employee who has passed away.

The committee can set up its own process and editing rules for handling editing. The following is the process suggested by Becky Reiss, who served as chair for more than 20 years.

1. When an obituary meets the selection criteria, copy and paste it to a document for unedited obituaries, in case you need to refer to it later.
2. Copy, paste and save the same obituary to a document for edited obituaries where the actual editing takes place.
3. The types of information to included are:
   1. Person’s name, age, date passed away
   2. Higher education - including universities, degrees, year(s) obtained if given.
   3. Affiliation with ASU - position held, years at ASU if known. Look for additional information on asu.edu if appropriate.
   4. Affiliation with ASURA - Search in all-time volunteers to see if they have been an ASURA volunteer. Search in video history interviews to see if ASURA has interviewed them. Include any pertinent information in the obit, especially a link to the video history interview page for the person.
   5. Membership in professional organizations
   6. Honors/awards received (be selective if many are listed)
   7. Family members who predeceased the person. Include the name of spouse/partner. Include only the number of sons/daughters, siblings, nieces, nephews, etc., — not individuals’ names.
   8. Survivors of person. Again, name of spouse/partner; number only of other relatives.
   9. Charities, etc., a person may contribute to in honor of the deceased.
   10. Memorial/funeral date/place/time. (If already held, change to past tense)
4. Images
   1. An image may be included with an obituary
   2. PBI Research Services NEVER includes an image.
   3. If an image is not included, Google the name online to look for an image, or search on asu.edu.
   4. When an image is found,
      1. If the image is a jpeg or png format right click to save it to edited obituary folder (in jpg format) to include when the obituary is prepared for posting on Wild Apricot
      2. If an image is in WebP format, use the "snipping" app in Windows to snip the picture and save it to a location on your computer or if using a Mac download the XnConvert app to convert the image from WebP to jpeg format. XnConvert is Multi-Platform so can be used with Mac, Windows, Linux, etc.

Sample of an unedited and edited obituary

UNEDITED obit of Robert “Bob” Winship Heath, Sr.

Robert "Bob" Winship Heath, Sr. 

May 14, 1933 - September 19, 2021

Bob Heath died peacefully at home of natural causes on September 19, 2021. He was born in Durham, NC and raised in Chapel Hill. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and the University of North Carolina, where he graduated with a PhD in Topology under the direction of F. Burton Jones.

He taught at various universities throughout the United States including the University of Georgia, Arizona State University, the University of Washington, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Pittsburgh. He also did research at the University of Oxford, England as a Visiting Scholar.

Bob retired in Pittsburgh, PA and then moved to Auburn, AL where he had lived for the past 30 years with his wife, Jo. He enjoyed playing bridge, eating Indian Food, and spending time with his family, friends, and his dog, Wogee. Bob will be remembered for his great intellect, scholasticism, and quirky sense of humor.

He is survived by his wife, Jo Heath, his sons, Robert W. Heath, Jr. (Cecelia), Edward B. Heath (Dianne), his stepchildren, Jay Sandefur (Ursula), Peggy Browning (Gary), Eric Ford (Jody), and Robert Ford, and grandchildren, nieces, and nephews.

He was preceded in death by his parents Milton Heath, Sr. and Clara Cole Heath, brother, Milton Heath, Jr., sister, Betty Danziger and his first wife, Mary Lois Cadle Heath. (Source: Arizona Republic)

EDITED obit of Robert “Bob” Winship Heath, Sr.

Robert "Bob" Winship Heath, Sr., 88, passed away on September 19, 2021. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and the University of North Carolina, where he graduated with a PhD in Topology under the direction of F. Burton Jones. 

He taught at various universities throughout the United States including the University of Georgia, ASU, the University of Washington, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Pittsburgh. He also did research at the University of Oxford, England as a Visiting Scholar.

Bob retired in Pittsburgh, PA and then moved to Auburn, AL where he had lived for the past 30 years with his wife, Jo.

He is survived by his wife, Jo Heath, two sons, four stepchildren, and grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. Bob was preceded in death by a brother, a sister, and his first wife, Mary Lois Cadle Heath. (Source: Arizona Republic)

Following are the steps to create and send obituaries to those members of ASURA who have indicated that they want to receive such obituaries. The material assumes you have already logged on to Wild Apricot and have selected "Admin view" (see navigating-wa-menus for help).

1. Log onto Wild Apricot and change to the Admin view. If you do not see a gray menu bar on the left side click on the “house” icon at the end of the horizontal gray menu bar.
2. On the Contacts tab, click on "Saved Search", then on "ASU Obituaries". This will run a search and you can see the list, the criteria used, and the number of records found.
3. Click on the blue "Email contacts" button. 
4. Click on the “Obituary Notice” template. This will bring up a template for the e-mail Blast. The template has three rows for three obituaries with a column for specific data and a picture, if available, and a column for the edited obituary.
5. Compose the announcement  Each row in the template contains the obituary information for one obituary. If there is more than one obituary in the announcement then the second and third rows are for the second and third obituary. For each obituary: 
   1. In the left box write over the question text and curly-brackets with the correct values to the questions. Names should be entered as First name Last name. 
   2. If you have a picture, click on the “Insert image” button. If you do not see a page of photos, click on the blue “Pictures” link in the upper left part of the screen. Next click on the Browse button and point to the photo on your computer and double click on the photo which now appears on your screen. The last step is to click on the yellow-green “Insert” button at the bottom of the screen. Note:  If there is no picture then mouse over the “Insert image” button and select the “trash can” to delete this gadget. 
   3. In the right box enter the edited obituary text. The default text is Verdana, size 18, with line space (22). If you type in the obituary the text should have that font and spacing. If you copy and paste the material it may or may not have the default font in which case you will need to use the editor to change it. 
   4. When you have finished entering information for all the obituaries, if you still have blank rows, delete them. Move the mouse to an area to the left outside the boxes; this brings up a large rectangular apricot colored box. Click on the trash can in the upper left side of the apricot rectangle to delete the layout. 
   5. Finally, change the name in the bottom box to your name.
   6. Click on the "Preview” tab in the gray e-mail creation menu and send yourself a test e-mail to make sure the formatting and any embedded links are correct. If there are problems, click on the “Design” tab and make the corrections.
6. When all the problems have been resolved click on “Recipients” tab. At the top, just above the “Contact” and “Contact list” buttons, you will see in a blue box “Selected contacts (date and time of selection and the number of contacts selected to receive the blast)”; make sure the number is what you expected..
   1. Enter “Obituary, Last name” in the “Subject” box.
   2. If you are not the person to receive any replies to the announcement, click on the “Change reply to” button and select the person who should get any replies. 
   3. If "Tracking" is enabled uncheck the box
7. Click on Tab 5 - Review and Send. Check that the number of recipients is reasonable, that the subject is correct, and that the correct person is getting all replies. If everything is ok then click on the green "Send” button. Note: if you have a number of obituaries, it is possible to schedule them so they come out on different days by using the "Schedule" button on this tab. Scheduling is not required and is a personal choice.
8. The final step involves monitoring whether the email was delivered successfully to all the recipients. Occasionally Wild Apricot has difficulty successfully sending the blast and some recipients do not get the e-mail. To check, 
   1. Select “Log” from the “Email” menu and find your blast. 
   2. There will be statistics stating what percentage has received or failed to receive the blast. 
   3. Once the percentage reaches one hundred, and this may take several minutes, if any of the e-mails failed to be delivered click on the red percentage button and then on the “Resend to selected failures” button. 
   4. On rare occasions you will need to repeat this check for the failed e-mails. 
   5. If there are still members who are not getting the blast after a third try contact the Business Manager so the problem can be looked into.