Morticians Apprentice V1I2 (PDF)

Mid-America College of Funeral Service

The Mortician’s Apprentice
Volume 1, Issue 2

Exploring Local Businesses

January 30, 2017

Upcoming Events:
-Deadline to join Pi Sigma
Eta 01/30
Groundhog day 2/2
-Valentines day - 2/14
-President's day 2/20
-ICCFA Training - 2/28 , 3/1
-Open house 3/4
-6th quarter finals 3/8 - 3/10
- 2nd and 4th quarter finals
3/15 - 3/17
-Comprehensive Exams
3/15 - 3/17
-St. Patrick's day 3/17
-Graduation rehearsal 3/23
at 10:30am
-Graduation 3/24

As students of mortuary science, it is important
that we become familiar with local funeral homes
and the services they provide.
This is a list of funeral homes close to MidAmerica College within a 10-15 mile radius. This
will be an Indiana-side-of-the-river funeral report,
with Kentucky and Louisville metro area for the
next story I write.
Scott Funeral Home Inc
Address: 2515 Veterans Pkwy, Jeffersonville, IN
47130
Phone:(812) 283-8161
Legacy Funeral Center
Address: 921 Main St, Jeffersonville, IN 47130
Phone:(812) 283-8269
Faithful Companions Pet Cremation Services
LLC.
Address: 2515 Veterans Pkwy, Jeffersonville, IN
47130
Phone:(812) 283-7387
Scott Funeral Home Inc, Faithful Companions Pet
Cremation Services LLC and Legacy Funeral
Home are all part of the Scott Funeral Home family. Current employees:
Mrs Gohmann, Dakota Parsons, and Kaelin Brock.
E M Coots' Sons Inc Funeral Home
Address: 120 W Maple St, Jeffersonville, IN 47130
Phone:(812) 282-1356
Traditional services to direct cremation

Inside this issue:
Exploring Local Business-

1

News from Around the Community

2

Note From the Dean

2

Faculty Spotlight

2

Message from our President/
Upcoming Changes

3

Ask the Apprentice

3

Student Spotlight/Note

3

Mason Funeral Home
Address: 828 Watt St, Jeffersonville, IN 47130
Phone:(812) 283-6731
Traditional services to direct cremation

Meet Your Apprentices
Senior Editor, Faculty Reporter: Sheridan
Ojers
Lead Story Reporters: Randy Lankford, Greg
Burton
Student Affairs Reporter: Jasmine Johnson
Funeral service reporter: Liz Olson
Ask the Apprentice: A rotating role
Upcoming Events Correspondent: Cody Hill
Special Projects Editor: Felicity DeCamp
Faculty Advisor: Amy Baxley

“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”
~ Dolly Parton

Spring Valley Funeral and Cremation Service
Address: 1217 E Spring St, New Albany, IN 47150
Phone:(812) 941-8477
Traditional services to direct cremation
Kraft Funeral Service
Address: 2776 Charlestown Rd, New Albany, IN
47150
Phone:(812) 981-2410
Traditional services to direct cremation
Newcomer Funeral Home, Southern Indiana Chapel
Address: 3309 Ballard Ln, New Albany, IN 47150
Phone:(812) 949-9900
Newcomer has several locations, and offer a wide
variety of services. Traditional services to direct
cremation.
Chapman Funeral Home
Address: 431 Harrison Ave, Clarksville, IN 47129
Phone:(812) 283-7110
Traditional services to direct cremation
Garr Funeral Home
Address: 7806 IN-60, Sellersburg, IN 47172
Phone:(812) 246-3344
Seabrook Dieckmann Naville Home
Address: 1846 E Oak St, New Albany, IN 47150
Phone:(812) 945-2304
Full service funeral home
-Greg Burton, Lead Reporter
Looking for adventure? Maybe relocating? The
following is a list of funeral homes that are currently SEEKING EMPLOYEES!

DeBaun FH
Greiner Funeral Home
and Cremation Service
Chambers & Grubbs
B & G Mortuary Svc
Newcomer FH

812-299-5125
812-234-8200

Day & Deremiah-Frye
Funeral Home, Deremiah-Frye Mortuary, and
Bond-Mitchell Funeral
Home
Doan & Mills Funeral
Home
Boultinghouse FH
Haley-McGinnis FH &
Crematory
FH
Lakes FH
Miller-Schapmire FH

(812) 336-6331
(812) 332-9376

859-525-9009
502-773-5469
Newcomerfuneralhome.com

(765) 966-0596
812-649-4546
270-315-4331
502-974-1799
606-287-7141
270-608-9470

PAGE 2

T HE MO R T I C I A N’ S A P P R E NT I C E

V O LU M E 1 , I S S U E 2

News from Around the Community
By Liz Olsen, Funeral Service Reporter
Recently I had the opportunity to have a casual conversation with a couple of extremely knowledgeable and experienced funeral directors over at the Ratterman's Funeral Home in Louisville, Ky. They graciously shared with me valuable insights
and answered all of my newbie questions with care and patience. As we talked about casket companies merging and size
increases, a comment in passing stood out as a valuable nugget of wisdom to pass on to my fellow Mid-Americans, "Sadly,
heroin overdoses, and specifically those in the 20-30 year old age group is jumping up drastically. Our numbers have had a
marked increase to where they actually made up a percentage of our jobs last year. The general public just has no idea."
This last phrase kept repeating in my head, “The general public just has no idea”. That kind of sums up perfectly the whole
attitude toward the heroin epidemic facing our community. It has long been swept under the rug or chalked up to being a
"big city" problem. Recent news articles and reports of waves of overdoses linked to "tainted" batches of product have just
started to sound the alarm. It stands to reason that people look to healthcare trends to determine what new threats we
should be aware of. A sobering thought about the ever-increasing heroin epidemic is that we can also look to funeral directors to get a look at impending threats. The emphasis on the age group 20-30s made me wonder why the public hasn’t taken
more notice of this trend. It is uncommon to have a high death rate among that age range, so an upward trend should stand
out. Why would the public still be in the dark on this? A possible answer to this, I found, is simple and shocking.
This is the beginning of an even more dramatic increase in fatal overdoses in our region, and in this age group. After hearing
about this from last responders, I was curious to see if first responders had a similar opinion. Around a late night campfire,
the response given to me by two Jeffersonville patrolmen and a respiratory therapist at Clark Memorial Hospital was more
frightening than any scary story shared in my memory. When asked if they would say that recently they had seen a surge in
people 20-30 years old having fatal heroin overdoses, like clockwork, without hesitation, and almost in unison they declared,
" Definitely.", "Without a doubt." "For sure."
The Courier Journal recently featured an article in which the following was reported, “As Kentucky examined new 2015
overdose death data this week, Clark County, Ind., numbers became alarming. In 2015, Clark County recorded 55 overdose
deaths, according to the local health department, which seems to pale in comparison to Jefferson County, Ky.'s 207, reported
in the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy's 2015 Overdose Fatality Report.”
As funeral professionals, we need to be on top of the local “trends” in death and dying, thus providing the most up to date
information and care to the families we serve.

Faculty Spotlight
By Sheridan Ojers, Senior Editor
Ms. Angela Persinger
joined Mid-America College
of Funeral Service in 2013.
Ms. Persinger, at that time,
was not only the Registrar
but also in charge of student
administration. It wasn’t
until a couple of years ago, when Mid-America
hired an Admissions Director, that her day-today tasks lessened. On top of being a mother to
two daughters, eighteen and twelve, Ms. Persinger works full time answering the phones, updating the Student Information System, taking
students’ payments, among many other tasks.
Ms. Persinger enjoys spending her free time with
her family as much as possible.

Note from Our Dean
You may notice a few differences in some students during
the week of 1/30 – 2/2. These differences will be among
the current and future members of Pi Sigma Eta, Lambda Kappa chapter academic fraternity.
A fraternity is a group of people sharing a common profession or interest and in this case the interest is the funeral service profession.
The current members will be dressed in t-shirts on Monday 1/30 so the pledges or new members will be able to
identify them. The week is concluded with an initiation
that will occur Thursday evening where the pledges are
inducted into the fraternity and become active members.
Members must continue to meet the national requirements to maintain their active status. Those active members will also be identified with purple cords or stoles
worn during graduation.
The fraternity strives to be active not only at MidAmerica but also the community. We have raised money
and donated services to Hildegard House in Louisville as
well as host a trick or treat event last October.

V O LU M E 1 I S S U E 2

T HE MO R T I C I A N’ S A P P R E NT I C E

PAGE 3

Upcoming Changes
Need a pencil? How about a
binder? Thanks to Mrs. Baxley,
Mid-America has got you covered! Mid-America is pleased to
present the brand-new MidAmerica Bookstore. Mrs. Baxley
wished to provide the students
of Mid-America with a place to
purchase supplies at the school
just like a majority of other colleges across the United States.
Thanks to the constant question,
“Can I borrow a pencil?” Mrs.
Baxley found her inspira-

tion.through the Kappa Delta Pi
Classroom Teacher Grant,
Baxley was able to secure the
supplies to open our new
bookstore. Kappa Delta Pi is an
International Honor Society in
Education that was founded in
1911 with the hopes to provide
“Quality Learning for All”. Mrs.
Baxley, a member of this national honor society, applied for the
Kappa Delta Pi Classroom
Teacher Grant with the hopes
that this bookstore could grow

and become self-sustaining
while providing students with
the supplies that they need to
succeed in the classroom. So, the
next time a fellow student asks
you for a pencil, pen, even a
mug, send them in Mrs. Baxley’s
direction! Congratulations ,Mrs.
Baxley! Thank you for
always going to bat
for us!
Sheridan Ojers,
Senior Editor

A Message from our President


Mid-America has been selected to be one of four schools to receive the NFDA Arranger Training for free! This class will be
taught by Lacy Robinson on a date that has yet to be determined. The NFDA Arranger Training will “provide you with the
tools you need to convey the value of the funeral to families and partner with them to design memorable life tribute events”.



The junior and senior classes, here at Mid-America, will be participating in the ICCFA certification on February 28th and
March 1st. This cremation certification class will be of no cost to the students and will be a two day event.



Mid-America is excited to announce, starting April 2017, the Bachelor of Science in Funeral Service Management program.
This bachelor’s degree will be consistent of nine classes and will cost $3700 a quarter. The program can be finished in two
quarters and is entirely online! There are two enrollment requirements to be accepted into the program: 1. Earned an Associate Degree in Funeral Service from an ABFSE accredited college 2. Passed both sections of the National Board Examination (NBE) or is a licensed Funeral Director/Embalmer in their state. If you have any questions regarding bachelors program our Admissions Representative, Michael Moeller.

Brye Welty, a member of the current senior class, came to Mid-America with a wealth of knowledge
and experience. He and his wife, Meghan, live in Madison, Indiana. Brye sought Mid-America to
add to his passion for ministry by serving families who have experienced loss. Byre has a Bachelor’s
degree in preaching and church leadership from Johnson University. Brye is very involved with his
church, North Madison Christian Church., holding the position of Junior High Pastor. He is also
employed at Lytle Funeral Homes and Cremation Service. Brye enjoys working (to the point of calling himself a “workaholic”) and baking. Brye tell us he feels that, “...God calls us to different areas
of ministry and perhaps mine is at the funeral home.”

Jasmine Johnson, Stu- We are happy to have Brye as part of our student body.
dent Affairs Reporter

CAPSTONE…

Ask the Apprentice

A word that describes
a class that causes most seniors to
cringe. Capstone is a class for the sixth
quarter students that helps them prepare for the upcoming Comps and
Boards. This class is taught by a differ-

ent instructor each week and
the seniors are then give an exam with questions that could
potentially be on the Comps and
Boards. If a student fails to
score above a 75% they are re-

quired to do Capstone Corrections. These corrections are used as a
tool to help the seniors learn the information that they missed. While corrections are not required of those students scoring above a 75% it is highly
recommended.

The mission of Mid-America College of Funeral Service is to
provide a contemporary education for those having chosen
funeral service as their life's work that will enable the student to become a successful entry-level funeral service
practitioner by:


inspiring in each student a desire to achieve proficiency

3111 Hamburg Pike

and efficiency in the practical skills of embalming and

Jeffersonville, Indiana 47130

restorative art, and

Mid-America College of Funeral
Service is committed to responsiveness
and timely service to our students.
Our college is open Monday through
Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
EST.
We’re on the web!
http://www.mid-america.edu/



preparing each student to become an effective funeral
home manager or owner with acquired management
skills firmly conceived in proven, successful business
fundamentals, principles and practices, and



promoting within each student a better understanding of
the complexities and dynamics of grief, the ability to better anticipate the needs of those bereaved, and to more
fully appreciate the role and central value of the funeral
service practitioner as a caregiver in the community.

General Education Class is
currently selling MidAmerica College of Funeral
Service license plate
frames. $9.00 if you preorder, $10 when they arrive.
Additionally, the class has
two sweatshirts left, one
size 3X and one size medium. We will sell them for
the clearance price of $15
each. What a bargain!

The Junior Class
is currently selling the following:

The following items are being
sold by our students.

17 oz clear glass stein with
handy thumb grip with
blue MACFS circular seal
for $12.00 each
16 oz. travel mug with
black MACFS circular seal
for $12.00 each
11 oz. blue coffee mugs
with white MACFS circular seal for $8.00 each
First Responder T-shirts,
Sweatshirts and Hoodies
prices ranging from $15.00
- $30.00

Check it out!!!!
The Senior Class is currently selling T-shirts inscribed with the mantra
“Party Like a Mortician
and Grab a Cold One.”
$15 Small– 3XL
We are now
accepting