Stefanie Gonzalez didn’t plan to work in Scottsbluff. Other communities turned her down when she was searching for a funeral home to earn her certification in funeral directing. That was nearly 15 years ago.
“At that time, the funeral director shortage wasn't an issue, and funeral homes felt comfortable turning down apprentices and people that were interested in getting into this career,” she said.
Today, she would have likely been hired in any community. There’s a serious need for people to join the profession, according to Gonzalez and other funeral directors in the state.
Gonzalez owns Reverence Funeral Parlor with her husband in Scottsbluff and serves as the past president of the Nebraska Funeral Directors Association.
When she started working in Scottsbluff, there were 10 funeral directors in town to care for families in need. Now, there are five.
Health-related deaths are often much higher in rural parts of the state. After a spike in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Nebraska mortality rates began to fall, but remain higher than years before the pandemic, according to research from the National Institutes of Health.
“There are just five of us licensed, and there are no fewer deaths,” Gonzalez said. “We're seeing a definite increase in the amount of people that we're caring for, or the case loads, but not as many people coming into mortuary service to offset the ratio for funeral director to caseload.”
That ratio, she said, is typically one funeral director for every 75 cases per year. Last year, she served 146 families, nearly twice the cases one person should handle.
“It gets to be a lot when you're juggling that much, and then the quality of care unintentionally gets diluted just because you are so busy,” Gonzalez said.
When funeral directors become overwhelmed by demand, they might merge with neighboring funeral homes. Most recently, homes in Fremont and in Norfolk merged. In Nebraska City, one funeral home took over another’s operations to respond to needs in southeast Nebraska.
Recruiting new professionals in rural areas can be hard, Gonzalez said. Not many people want to move to parts outside of metropolitan areas, where she said funeral directors are expected to be on call at all hours of the day.
“I think there are younger people who do have an interest and a curiosity in what we do,” Gonzalez said. “What has scared a lot of the younger generation away is the time being on call, the working holidays, the having to schedule life around work, rather than scheduling work around life.”
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there will be 10 additional funeral directors needed in the state by 2032, a 5.6% increase from current employment numbers.
The demand for funeral directors and morticians in the state is rising, but there are no accredited college programs in the state of Nebraska. Some offer pre-mortuary degree tracks, but students still need to study at an accredited program to earn their certification. That means students pursuing a career in mortuary science must enroll in out-of-state or online programs.
Kevin Patterson, program chair of the Des Moines Area Community College mortuary science program, said DMACC offers its mortuary science program primarily online. This year, there are 10 Nebraska students enrolled, making up just over 6% of the program’s enrollment, he said.
“That would be about what we normally would run in a given year,” Patterson said. “We wanted to build a program that would meet the requirements to help them get licensed while they're still there in their area, and be able to comply with the accreditation requirements for education there.”
He said he’s seen enrollment numbers for the program increase over the past five years. The program has graduated a yearly average of six Nebraska students between 2021 and 2024. Wayne State College in northeast Nebraska graduated a yearly average of about five students over that same span of time.
The Nebraska Legislature passed LB555 last Wednesday that could reduce some of the daily responsibilities through the creation of an assistant funeral director. The bill, introduced by Sen. Merv Riepe, creates a position for an assistant funeral director. The person is not a licensed mortician, but allows people interested in the profession to take on some of the daily responsibilities of funeral home operations.
The assistant funeral director would be attached to the funeral director’s license, which means directors would need to be confident in their training before putting them in front of families.
“You're going to train them up the best you can, and if they're not meeting those standards, you're not going to put them in front of a family, because that ultimately comes back on you as the funeral director,” said Chris Klingler, the owner of Fox Funeral Home & Cremation Services in Beatrice.
It would take about eight months of training before Klinger said he would feel confident giving someone the responsibilities he typically oversees.
Despite the bill passing, Klinger said he isn’t sure there would be enough people to fill the newly opened positions, and it won’t alleviate the current demand for directors and embalmers.
“We still need the funeral directors going to school,” he said. “This is just to kind of help with the job shortage. But we definitely still need the funeral directors and embalmers to go to school. That's very important.”
The shortage isn’t just in rural Nebraska. Dean Schneider, a funeral director and co-owner at Roper & Sons Funeral Home in Lincoln said retirement plays a big role in the decline of the number of licensed funeral directors.
“That's a major concern,” he said. “As far as replacing those aging and reaching-retirement-age funeral directors, I think that's something that is everywhere. I don't think Nebraska is unique to that potential problem and situation. I think every state is probably going through that.”
Schneider thinks part of the hesitancy from young people joining the profession is that Nebraska’s funeral director and embalming certification are joined. Nebraska is one of three states in the country that runs on this certification model.
“There seems to be interest in the industry, more so on the funeral directing side, and that caring for people. There's probably less interest in the prep work side of things, the embalming side of things,” Schneider said. “In Nebraska, there's one license, and you can't be a funeral director without also being an embalmer. You can't be an embalmer without also being a funeral director.”
Funeral directors in rural Nebraska say they try to encourage young people with an interest in the career to pursue an education. Gonzalez, the state funeral directors association president, said she tries to accommodate students and apprentices as they come through.
Though the profession is very demanding, Gonzalez said there’s simply no other career she would have wanted to end up in.
“The good so far outweighs the bad, the fulfillment that you get from helping families through their darkest time is just comparable to nothing else,” Gonzalez said. “Despite the extremely difficult days and the stress and the worry it's just so fulfilling to know that you know you are bringing some good to a dark time.”