RFP Staff
♦ Sadly we all know in Rowan County three certainties exist: Taxes, Death, and Salisbury Entitlements.
Fortunately, we do not have to fret over is the coming end of life for that time-worn alternate media source that wants us to believe it is the end-all and be-all for local “news”. Last week the RFP, after running an article about wolves at Salisbury’s door, a reader lectured us. She raised the question “What if I run into my old high school friend downtown in Salisbury and I ask, ‘How’s Billy Ray?’ And what if her response is, ‘He died two weeks ago. Didn’t you KNOW?’”
Well, right away we realized that part of preparedness at the Rowan Free Press should be to provide our readers with such a service. Our staff immediately formed a research committee, focused itself at our battery of computers, and soon dug up these items of interest:
First, the alleged circulation of the Salisbury Post, claimed in Wikipedia, is 18,970 Daily and 19,417 Sunday, which includes subscriptions and newsstand papers, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, as of September 6, 2011. Not such an outstanding number, even though the figures have plummeted in the past 2.5 years, but in a county of 140 thousand residents, that would be a whopping 14.1% market penetration. One staff member was chided for snickering until she reminded us about the “Newspapers In Schools” and other giveaways at Lowes and Food Lion probably pumped the figures above single digits. Nonetheless, the Salisbury Post reaches at least 1 out of maybe 10 or 11 folks in our county, so a grieving friend may be left out when the Salisbury Post reaches its expiration date.
Back in 2005, the Salisbury Post began charging $89.50 to grieving families for an obituary of up to 11 lines in a column. Most funeral homes will collect that fee as part of funeral expenses if a family asks for it. But it made sense for us to study the issue of the inevitable. After all, as of October 2012, 72.4% of American households had high-speed Internet in their homes. Quite a few in Rowan County and even in Salisbury.
Thus, armed with the raw numbers, the Rowan Free Press upper management made a decision to get obituary information out to our readers, free of charge to the grieving families. Effective at the time of Salisbury Post’s final lunch bell we will add a category to the RFP Forum page, especially for obituaries: http://rowanfreepress.forumotion.com/
Also, on the primary website, under “Announcements”, we will provide the following links to local obituaries from each funeral homes appearing online in the staff’s search. In alphabetical order, they are:
http://www.lyerlyfuneralhome.com/obituaries.php
http://www.powlesfuneralhome.com/_mgxroot/page_10780.php
http://www.summersettfuneralhome.com/obituaries/
If readers believe we should add other funeral homes, we welcome recommendations, which we will add, in order to keep readers of the Rowan Free Press up-to-date of local passages of our friends and neighbors.
Finally, those persons concerned about the passing of the alternate news source on East Innes in Salisbury with its alarming skeletal staff, you need not fret. When the time comes for bereavement, we will permit an obituary of up to 11 lines, free of charge, to lament its passing, too. The Salisbury Post will not be buried without notice in a shallow pit in Potter’s field.
