Eternal Image Inc (fka ETNLQ)

[al44]

Orlando Sentinal:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-coffins1508oct15,0,278218.story


Fan spirit is grave matter at funeral directors expo

Jerry W. Jackson | Sentinel Staff Writer
October 15, 2008

For die-hard Tampa Bay Rays fan Dale Gunter, there could hardly be a better way to spend eternity than in a comfy, custom-designed coffin with the Rays logo and colors.

"That's my team," said Gunter, who was at the National Funeral Directors Association Expo on Tuesday in Orlando, checking out the baseball-themed and other latest casket offerings from Eternal Image, a Michigan outfit that offers licensed brand-image caskets, urns, monuments and vaults.

Gunter, owner of Gunter Funeral Home and Cremation Services in St. Petersburg, said that while custom coffins are a small slice of the multimillion-dollar burial business, more families these days look for a way to honor their dearly departed in a personal way.

That might mean a scarlet and gray Ohio State Buckeyes casket, a snazzy blue and gray Star Trek coffin, or maybe a nice New York Yankees urn sitting atop a home-plate base.

Related links

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National Funeral Directors Association Expo National Funeral Directors Association Expo Photos

Nick Popravsky, vice president of sales for Eternal Image, said the Farmington Hills, Mich.-based company gets "a lot of requests for SEC schools" and right now is working on agreements with Florida colleges, including the University of Florida and Florida State.

For fans who would like a Gator or Seminole casket, Popravsky advised them to be patient and careful.

"Hang in there, and look both ways," before crossing a street, he quipped.

Actress Barbara Eden of I Dream of Jeannie fame was at the booth at the Orange County Convention Center, pitching the custom coffins. She said she was assured the company could make her a casket modeled after the genie's bottle she spent so much time in during the 1960s sitcom.

"Not for a while, though," Eden said.

The custom coffins typically cost about $1,000 more than regular ones, Popravsky said, but for many families it's a small price to pay for a special send-off.

Kurt Soffe, owner of Jenkins-Soffe Funeral Chapels & Cremation Center in Murray, Utah, said his family has been in the funeral business for four generations. The folks who run funeral homes now are as serious as they ever were in respecting a family's loss, he said, but they do tend to be less stodgy than in his great-grandfather's day.

"Most are still small, family-owned businesses," he said, trying to make a living as traditions change and profits are pinched. Cremation costs less than a burial and more families are opting for that, he said, while burials are changing in other ways. More funeral homes, for example, are using the Internet so families can see the service on live webcasts from home.

But tradition still means a lot to many families -- and especially for those who may have Celtic blood in their veins.

Official Irish Dirt is now available, for people anywhere in the world who need a little earth from the old country, to ensure their eternal rest.

Three Irish entrepreneurs, Pat Burke, Tim Macdougald and Sean Carty, partners in The Auld Sod Export Co. Ltd., have a booth at the funeral expo, pitching their product -- black, peat-like soil packed in little green containers embossed with gold letters. Prices start at about $10.

"It comes from four [Irish] provinces -- fields, mountains and bogs," Burke said.

Many people are ordering it online at officialirishdirt.com, he said, to mix with the ashes of a loved one, to sprinkle on or around coffins and even for family members who may be long-gone but not forgotten. A trip to the cemetery with a handful of the old country, he said, can bring tears of joy and a flood of memories.

"Some people will say, 'You know, my mother was Irish -- and she never got to go home.' "