SIX FUNERAL HOMES BACK IN LOCAL HANDS.Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard Musgrove Family Mortuary mor·tu·ar·y n. A place, especially a funeral home, where dead bodies are kept before burial or cremation. of Eugene bought six area funeral homes on Wednesday, returning them to local ownership after 10 years of ownership by a Texas-based chain. The six funeral homes are Chapel of Memories Funeral Home, England's Eugene Memorial Chapel, England's Creswell Memorial Chapel, Lane Memorial Gardens and Funeral Home, West Lawn Memorial Park and Funeral Home, and Springfield Memorial Gardens and Funeral Home. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Musgrove plans to continue to operate the homes under their existing names, honor customers' contracts for prearranged pre·ar·range tr.v. pre·ar·ranged, pre·ar·rang·ing, pre·ar·rang·es To arrange in advance. pre services, and keep the employees, said Jeff Musgrove, who owns the business with his brother Mark. The acquisition boosts Musgrove's work force from 19 employees to 45. Some employees at the acquired funeral homes view the change of owners as a plus. ``We're very excited about being taken over by someone locally,'' said LeeAnn Ozbun, cemetery cemetery, name used by early Christians to designate a place for burying the dead. First applied in Christian burials in the Roman catacombs, the word cemetery came into general usage in the 15th cent. administrator at West Lawn Memorial Park. The six funeral homes had been owned by Houston-based Service Corporation International, North America's largest provider of funeral, cremation cremation, disposal of a corpse by fire. It is an ancient and widespread practice, second only to burial. It has been found among the chiefdoms of the Pacific Northwest, among Northern Athapascan bands in Alaska, and among Canadian cultural groups. and cemetery services. SCI (Scalable Coherent Interface) An IEEE standard for a high-speed bus that uses wire or fiber-optic cable. It can transfer data up to 1GBytes/sec. (hardware) SCI - 1. Scalable Coherent Interface. 2. UART. wanted to sell these funeral homes because they no longer fit with SCI's corporate strategy, said spokesman Terry Hemeyer. After the nationwide funeral-home acquisition frenzy Frenzy Beatlemania term referring to the Beatles’ (rock musicians) immense popularity; manifested by screaming fans in the 1960s. [Pop. Culture: Miller, 172–181] Big Bull Market of the 1980s and 1990s, some corporate chains, including SCI, now are concentrating on larger markets and exiting smaller ones, Musgrove said. The Musgroves said they were eager to expand and improve customer service by bringing these six funeral homes into the fold. Musgrove Family Mortuary's roots date back to 1883, and the funeral home is one of the oldest continuous operating businesses in Lane County, Musgrove said. ``We know from our experience that local ownership is going to give the best service to the families,'' he said. ``If you're selling auto parts Auto parts are components of automobiles. They mainly are, in alphabetic order (only car specific articles or articles with car section):
SCI, founded in 1962, owns 1,500 funeral homes and cemeteries in North America North America, third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. . It also operates in Germany and Singapore, and has a partnership with a leading service provider in France. To be able to operate an enterprise that large, SCI must have a system of regulations, Musgrove said. ``When you are stuck with a rigid set of rules, set by people who don't live in this community, that makes it problematic for the local funeral director to meet the needs of the families they're dealing with,'' he said. Local ownership will make it easier on other area funeral homes that frequently deal with the cemeteries, said Todd Slack 1. (operating system) slack - Internal fragmentation. Space allocated to a disk file but not actually used to store useful information. 2. (jargon) slack , owner of Major Family Funeral Home in Springfield. ``Having them be independent makes a huge difference,'' he said. ``Once it gets back in a family's hands, it's run a lot better with less paperwork and less hassles.'' One local funeral home owner home owner home n → propriétaire occupant , however, questioned whether the Musgrove acquisition made business sense. ``I have a hard time reasoning why someone would buy that many cemeteries and funeral homes when the cremation rate has drastically overtaken funeral services funeral service n → misa de cuerpo presente funeral service n → service m funèbre funeral service funeral n ,'' said Terry Moore, owner and director of the independently owned Poole-Larsen Funeral Home. ``A few years ago, I don't think any of us thought we'd be doing 80 percent cremation,'' he said. ``To me, it's just a not a good investment.'' CAPTION(S): Jeff (left) and Mark Musgrove, the brothers who own Musgrove Family Mortuary, have bought six funeral homes in the Eugene-Springfield area from a Texas-based chain, Service Corporation International. |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion