Appreciation For An Obit Writer

Tawnya Stapleton, longtime obituary writer for The Independent in Ashland, Ky., recently retired. In response, editor Mark Maynard penned a lovely tribute to Stapleton and her 22 years of dedication to the craft and the community.

"You haven’t seen her name in the bright lights of our newspaper because her writing doesn’t require a byline. Most of our readers wouldn’t know her if they saw her. But she has been there writing. Five days a week for 22 years. Always steady. Always professional. Always compassionate."

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Obits on massacred children

"How do you write an obit for a 6-year-old?" asks Washington Post (and former Tampa Bay Times) reporter Brady Dennis on Twitter following the Dec. 14 slayings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in New Jersey.

"And then for 15 more 6-year-olds? And then for four 7-year-olds?"

Ou conventional wisdom seems to indicate it's pretty hard to do effectively. To borrow a phrase from Kay Powell, the "arc or a life" isn't easy to track below middle age, at least in a way that's comfortable for us as storytellers. We want the story to be about the kid, not the kid's parents or anyone else. So what is there to say that will distinguish one 6-year-old from another in any memorable way?

All of this must be produced in a few hours, as the rest of the world's media are running down the same sources.  This sudden flood of attention sends some grieving people into shutdown mode.  Friends who feel powerless anyway take it upon themselves to ward off cameras and request privacy for the family.

Below are some snapshot obits by Matt Sedensky of the New York Times, of 12 students and four adults -- and until I figure out this linking in a way I can trust, the story is here:

http://www.tampabay.com/incoming/always-smiling-portraits-of-conn-victims/1266396

I always admire reporters who find a way to crank out even miniature thumbnail tidbits of people who have died. Perfectionism only helps as a hedge against making mistakes; otherwise it's counterproductive. Here's what I thought Sedensky did really well in an almost impossible situation.

He used what he had. Speaking for myself, there are times I've felt I should have a consistent voice across different obits. It's taken a while to accept that just as no two lives are the same, obits can emphasize very different kind of elements, from personality to the role someone played in a breaking news event. Lauren Rousseau, a teacher, had baked cupcakes to take to a party Friday night after she and her boyfriend watched The Hobbit. School psychologist Mary Sherlach, on the other hand, ran directly toward the young man weilding a semi-automatic rifle and lost her life in the process, and it is this detail that stands out for me, at least, in reading her story.

Whenever possible, he talked to people. Portraits of the children include images apparently gleaned from social media sites and the comments that appear below. That's okay, but the results there are less than spectacular. We learn that one girl visited Santa Claus and that another wore a pink polo dress, and and a friend of the girl in the dress thought she looked a lot like her brother.

Compare that against what this reporter found through apparent contact with human sources. Jesse Lewis often accompanied his dad to construction sites and to the coffee shop. Benjamin Wheeler's rabbi says the boy, 6, was unafraid to lead Hanukah dances and get others on the floor. Chase Kowalski, 7, recently told a neighbor about completeing and winning his first mini-triathlon.

Those are a couple of features about this unenviable assignment that impress me as a reader. I would imagine (but don't know) that Sedensky had some help, with others supplying him feeds. But to produce this much, under so much duress and with competition everywhere, is freaking amazing.

Andy Meacham

WATCH: Tim Bullamore on Obituary Writing