GREENVILLE — On Thursday, members of the Darke County Chamber of Commerce gathered to welcome a new, yet old, business to Greenville. The chamber conducted a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Tribute Funeral Home, Greenville Campus, formerly Oliver Floyd Funeral Home.
Tribute owner Eric Fee and wife Kristin were joined by parents Hershel and Barbara Fee and employees, to cut the ribbon to officially inaugurating the change of name. The Fees also own Tribute Funeral Home, New Madison Campus, formerly Braund Pope Funeral Home.
Fee, already owner of Braund Pope Funeral Home, purchased Oliver Floyd Funeral Home from Joe Floyd in December 2015. Oliver Floyd has been in operation since 1944, while Braund Pope’s origins date back to the late 1800s.
Darke County Chamber of Commerce President Sharon Deschambeau said the chamber was “very excited” to help Kristin and Eric Fee with the ribbon cutting.
“It’s such a pleasure to represent a small business that’s making a change that they’ve been working toward for about eight years now,” she said. “They’ve been chamber members the whole time and we’re happy to support them today.”
Kristin Fee said, “We’re grateful for our community’s trust. We walk alongside of people during the hardest, most difficult times of their life. At the heart of what we do is celebrating lives and serving families.”
“The only thing changing is the name,” said Eric Fee. “We’re still the only locally owned funeral home in Darke County.
Fee said recent changes to state law allowed them to make the change to Tribute.
“The corporations wanted it to change,” he said. “A lot of these corporations are buying up funeral homes and we’re trying to keep everything local. They changed it because you had to have the director’s name in [the title], and they’ve been fighting this legislation, so when these funeral directors leave or retire, they can still keep the old name.”
“We wanted our name to say what we do — that’s creating tributes,” Fee added. “We’ve added a ton of services and a ton of care and we’re going to continue to find that need and care and meet it, so it’s only going to get better from here on out.”
Fee said the phone numbers and staff at each location remain the same, and those who search online for Oliver Floyd or Braund Pope will be redirected to the new website at www.tributefuneralhomes.com
