Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 30, 1995                   TAG: 9507030136
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE LATEST IN TRENDS FOR LATE LOVED ONES

Funeral directors clad in shorts and sandals, rather than their somber suits, moved festively through a trade show at the Virginia Beach Pavilion. They viewed the latest in hearses, caskets, embalming fluids and final outfits.

The show Tuesday and Wednesday was part of the annual conventions of the Virginia Association of Funeral Directors and the Virginia Morticians Association.

Lockets and bracelets designed to hold ashes are the latest trend, said Hallie Place, a Winchester urn vendor who stood before rows and rows of polished wooden, marble and ceramic urns.

The silver lockets started with ``two women whose mother had been cremated,'' Place said. ``She had loved jewelry and had wondered if there was some way she could be memorialized with jewelry.''

For families far apart, sets with one large urn and several matching mini-urns allow relatives to share the ashes of a loved one. Jewelry-box urns with inner boxes for ash storage also are a new idea.

Cremation is on the rise nationwide, approaching 21 percent, according to the North American Cremation Association. Since 1989, Virginia's cremation rate has gone from 11 percent to 15 percent. Cremation costs one-third of the average funeral, which runs about $8,000 including burial expenses. Many families request a memorial service and other preparations along with the cremation.

Unique funeral ceremonies, right down to personalized coffins, are becoming more popular, said Covington funeral director David L. Arritt.

``For the golfer, the choir member. And for Mother,'' he said, pointing to coffin lids featuring a colorful embroidered golf scene, a few bars of "Amazing Grace" and roses in gauze netting.

In general, families are participating more fully in the final rite. ``Sometimes we have family members and friends who want to do the hair and makeup,'' said Karen Kellum, co-owner of Kellum Funeral Home in Virginia Beach. ``We have moms who want to dress their babies. People need to do something, so we try to accommodate them as much as the law allows.''

Undertakers are working on offering services long after loved ones are buried. Some offer to help form support groups for grieving parents or widows. Others have trained grief counselors.

And South Hill funeral director W.D. Willis is prepared to accommodate the disabled and the hurried with drive-through viewing.

The floor inside the window-enclosed viewing area is 8 inches lower than the outside driveway, Willis said. The bereaved can call in advance to make arrangements to view their dearly departed, then drive to the curtained window, view from the car, sign a register and go.

So far, Willis said, no one has used the service.