eNews January 2023

Any Personnel Changes for the Directory or eNews Subscription?

Kindly report any changes in your Licensee information to Susan Barry at sbarry@wilbert.com or call Susan at 708-865-1600 at your first opportunity when changes occur.  Thank you!

Chippiannock Cemetery Association

November 9, 2022

After much planning and preparation, Gary Mosier and a team from Wilbert Memorials in Parsons, Kansas, arrive at Chippiannock Cemetery to restore the Robinson monument to an upright position. With the skillful crane work by Barnhart Crane and Rigging in East Moline, the team raises the column, capital, and urn back into position over the course of several hours. Once more, the Robinson family monument is made whole again.

This work would not have been possible without the assistance of the Chippiannock Cemetery Heritage Foundation.

WilbertEDU^® Updates

WilbertEDU continues to be a huge success! Thanks to all of you and your outreach to funeral professionals, we continue to see our webinar attendance rise each session and to date have seen over 18,000+ attendees since we began in November, 2020. We continued to have informative industry experts in December and look forward to more successful webinars in 2022.  

WilbertEDU^® Upcoming Sessions

Kicking off our 2023 WilbertEDU webinar series January 19^th will be Duane Hills,President of the Joseph Gawler’s Sons in Washington DC., the Funeral Home of the Presidents! Their history began at its start-up in 1850 until present day, 172 years later.Duane entered funeral service in 1978 after graduating from the Simmons School of Mortuary Science in Syracuse, New York. Over the years, he worked at and then owned funeral homes in Big Flats and Corning, New York until he sold them to the Loewen Group in 1995. Over the years he has remained in funeral service and began working with SCI. In 2012 he transferred to Washington DC to become the Assistant Manager of Joseph Gawler’s, and four months later, became the President where he currently works. Duane will discuss the four generations of Gawler’s and their roles in the development of funeral service especially when servicing their first presidential funeral, Woodrow Wilson, followed by seven more presidential services over the course of their 172 years. He will talk about what goes on behind the scenes when serving these high-profile individuals, especially what goes into the planning and execution in pulling it off. Other items he will touch on is taking the original funeral home and the modernization of the facility in Washington, DC, to keep up with current trends in funeral service. They have also created the Founder’s Room Museum at the funeral home to showcase the history and services of this historical building. He will enlighten the audience on the importance of funeral service professionals taking a bow and understanding their positions in a community, while embracing the changes in funeral service demanded by the people we serve. Duane has written a book entitled, “One Block West of the White House” and several attendees will win a copy of this newly released book.

February 2^nd, David Edwards will be presenting to the audience, When Helping Them is Hurting Us! This webinar will explore the concept of burnout with a focus on elements such as vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress. David is a subject matter expert in the area of first responder suicide and serves as a police chaplain, reserve police officer, and has over 45 years of experience in education and public speaking. He is a member of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress and the Association of Traumatic Stress Specialists and is credentialed as a Certified Trauma Services Specialist. David is an approved instructor with the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation and is a member of the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association. His audiences have included first responders and military personnel in more than 25 states. His current position is Wellness Officer, City of Monroe. He has been helping professionals working in the funeral profession, first responders, medical and mental health professionals to learn about both risk factors and protective factors that are inherent in the individual and in the environment as a means to focusing on preventing burnout and building resilience. In this session he will

• Help to identify risk factors associated with the potential to suffer from secondary traumatic stress.
• Help us to recognize his/her own protective factors and those within, or missing from, his/her organization.
• Discuss the concepts of compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress.
• Employ appropriate self-care strategies to guard against suffering from secondary traumatic stress.

WilbertEDU^® Recapping the December Session

On December 15^th, we welcomed Poul Lemasters back to the WilbertEDU webinar to discuss how theFuneral Profession is convinced that the big risk in getting sued revolves around cremation. And rightfully so! There are more and more cremations and more and more lawsuits following right along. But the funeral profession is filled with risks. Poul specifically addressed the overlooked risk of liability is embalming. The truth is that Funeral Homes continue to have embalming liabilities hit them all the time. From wrongful embalming to negligent embalming –the potential lawsuit is always there.

As always, Poul’s presentation educated the audience and provided steps they can implement to help protect them from liability.

Commemorating First Responder Captain Robert Moore

KENNETT, MO  –  Dec. 4, Captain Robert “Big Rob” Lee Moore responded to the scene of a residential fire. Early the next morning, Moore suffered an apparent heart attack and passed away.  He was 56 years old.

Captain Moore began his career as a part-time firefighter with the Kennett Fire Department in September 1992. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in November 1995.  After accepting a full-time position as a police officer in May 2000, Moore continued to serve as a part-time firefighter.

In May 2005, Moore accepted a full-time position with the fire department, serving part-time as a city police officer.

Moore was promoted to the rank of captain in August 2019.

Services were entrusted to the care of Powell Funeral & Cremation Service, Kennett, MO.

Wilbert Funeral Services of Jackson, MO., was honored to provide the family a 34-inch Continental^® burial vault, along with a graveside service.

 

Commemorating First Responder Deputy Sheriff Oscar Yovani Bolanos-Anavisca, Jr.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Fayetteville, NC – Deputy Sheriff Oscar Bolanos-Anavisca was struck and killed by a vehicle while investigating a robbery. He passed away Friday, December 16, 2022. He was 23 years old.