ABFSE Conference- Chatham, IL

We moved on to Illinois and set up at the Staab-Polk Funeral Home of Chatham. Paula Staab-Polk was hosting an event as part of the annual American Board of Funeral Service Education convention. More than one hundred teachers and adminstrators representing mortuary schools from across the United States came in by charter buses and toured our exhibit as well as Paula's facility. The group had lunch and listened to several presentations. One of which was by our own boss Harry Kurtz, joined by Frank Lorbach about our exhibit. It was a very interesting group of people and I hope we get a chance to bring our exhibit to many of their schools.



We also had a student group from the local middle school who were taking a grief class come and tour the exhibit. A classmate of theirs had died earlier that year and Paula was meeting with them periodically. They were very curious about the exhibit and asked a lot of questions.

LeHigh Valley Heritage Museum; Allentown, PA

After our show in Salem, I traded Abigail and Frank in for another MRA driver, Brian Schaefer, and we team drove the 2000 plus miles back to Detroit in about two days. After I got some well deserved rest, put Abigail back in the truck and we cruised on down to Allentown a couple of days later. It was quite a haul, but we had good weather and it was nice trip. I enjoyed my time with Bryan who has quite a few years of experience in this business. It was good to talk with him and get an other's perspective on operating these unique tours.


Our event in Allentown PA was hosted by the Lehigh Valley Heritage Center.
The event partially were sponsored by Rob-Win Press, a local printing company that specializes in materials for the funeral industry.


We were fortunate to have several school groups come through our exhibit and they really seemed to enjoy it. One of the schools was Roberto Clemente Charter School that it right next to the Museum. Many of the students come back after school with friends to share their experience.




After a weekend of perfect weather one would find it hard to believe that the event could get much better.

Monday was a busy day as we preparing for local Pennsylvania area Funeral Directors who were attending a continuing education class hosted by Rob-Win. We were also able to offer the attendees an additional credit for coming to our exhibit, this is something we are often able to do. The featured speaker was Nancy Bollman from Texas.

Pictured here are the current Mortuary Sciences students attending North Hampton Community College in Bethlehem, PA.

Lincoln Funeral Program Premier

With assistance from the Lehigh Valley Historical Society of Allentown, PA, the Reflections staff will be presenting an educational program on the Lincoln Funeral Train. This multimedia program of Abraham's final journey will premier at the McLean County Museum of History on Sunday, May 3rd at 1:00 PM. Please join us for this and other presentations.

Oregon Funeral Directors Convention

Our next stop was the capitol city of Salem, for the Oregon Funeral Directors Convention.
We tucked the truck underneath the overhang at the Salem Conference Center. It was not too difficult to get into but we had to turn the wrong way up a one way street to pull it in. Abigail was in the chase car blocking traffic for me, while Frank Lorbach and Dana Lee held up traffic on the one way. The whole maneuver only took about 30 seconds, but there was plenty of honking from the morning commuters letting me know I was going the wrong way. Abigail was even introduced to the unofficial state bird by one disgruntled motorist. It was all worth the fuss though. The conference center is a fantastic venue right in the heart of the city. It is connected with the Phoenix Grand Hotel where we stayed for the duration of our event. It was an excellent hotel and had the best complimentary breakfast of any place we have yet been to.



Our events went really well. We had a private showing during the conference cocktail party and got a good response from our guests. I was assured it wasn't just the cocktails either. We really enjoyed getting to talk with the guests about Oregon.



We also had several days of being open to the public in some really nice weather. We had well over 200 visitors while we were in Salem.

Lake Hills Memorial in Utah

On our recent visit to Lake Hills Memorial in Sandy, UT we had some very special visitors; the fifth grade classes from a nearby school took a little field trip to see us. We fully enjoyed hosting these ninety some kids on a beautiful Utah day. With the sun shining each group was brought through and then treated with juice and cookies by Lake Hills Memorial. The staff and community of Sandy was a pleasure to visit with.

Utah Funeral Directors Convention

We experienced the full fury of March in Wyoming as we headed west out of Cheyenne. The winds were gusting up to 50 miles per hour and we experienced some total white out conditions as we came over the mountain pass into Laramie. We just got in line crawled along with the other semis heading west. Visibility was so low that we didn't even realize we were behind a doubles tanker for about 25 miles until we got out of the storm. It was pretty scary but luckily it was mostly blowing snow so the roads weren't too slick. We will definitely have to try ane time our mountain runs better in the future.

After spending the night in Rawlins WY, we cruised into Salt Lake City and 50 degree weather the next day. What a beautiful city. It is completely surrounded by snow covered mountains this time of year. Our visit to SLC was to take part in the annual Utah Funeral Directors Conference and was sponsored by the Utah Funeral Directors Association. We set up on the plaza of EnergySolutions Arena where the Utah Jazz play hoops. It was a very nice location. We has about 350 people visitors come through. Many of whom were funeral directors in town for the convention. One of our more notable visitors was "Big Horn" the president of the Utah chapter of the Patriot Guard Riders.

Cheyenne Train Depot

On March 28th and 29th we spent a great weekend in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The exhibit was located on the plaza right in front the Union Pacific Railroad Depot. It was built in 1887 to support the growing city. The history of Cheyenne and the railroad are one and the same as the city sprung up as major stop on the first transcontinental railroad. The structure now houses a great museum about Cheyenne and the Union Pacific Railroad as well as a tasty grill pub called Shadows.
We had over 400 visitors come in over the weekend. A few which were excited Easter egg hunters who were unaware that their prey had been moved across the street to The Plains Hotel. The hunt was originally scheduled to be in the plaza but was moved inside due to weather. The Plains Hotel was a local sponsor helping to get us there.