Funerals, cemeteries and embalming rooms aren’t places where typical Baker students, or many other Baldwin City residents, often picture themselves. The stigma of gloom and gore around the funeral industry is enough to prevent most students from considering it as a viable career.

However, Baker University alumnus Eric Price, who is the managing partner, funeral director and embalmer at Lamb-Roberts Funeral Home in Baldwin City, is definitely satisfied with his career choice.

“I’ve had close friends who I buried and those are awful times, but you can put that person in God’s hands and take care of those who are left behind,” Price said. “That makes this job a lot easier.”

Price often sees his job as incredibly rewarding.

“Outside of this industry, people do think it is really negative, and to me it’s the opposite. That’s part of the reason I wanted to do this. There is such a sense of fulfillment,” he said. “It’s actually a really uplifting profession because you help people with something they thought they could never get through. It’s a lot easier to do this job when you have a strong faith in God.”

After growing up in a funeral home (literally, his house was attached to his father’s funeral home), Price swore he would never choose the same career that his father, cousin, grandfather and two great uncles had entered as funeral directors and embalmers.

“I always think, ‘Why do you get into this if you are not a funeral director’s kid?’” Price said. “There were a lot of things I didn’t like about this industry. Then you grow up and see there are negative things to every job.”

A death that hit close to home made Price re-think the negative connotation he had around being a funeral director.

“My best friend was killed in a car wreck in high school. That was the first time as a kid that I really realized what my dad did,” Price said. “Until then it was just the reason we couldn’t go on vacation or why we had to come home early. It was just an inconvenience to me.”

Price decided to attend Baker University for a degree in business rather than attend mortuary school. However, after realizing that all of his business papers referenced the funeral industry, Price knew that he was going to go down the same path as the two generations before him.

After graduating from Baker with a Bachelor of Science in Business Finance and Economics, Price headed off to Kansas City Kansas Community College to study mortuary science.

Price said that mortuary science is a great option to interested students, as the associate degree doesn’t require many years of study, although he thinks that should change. He also says that his Baker degree is incredibly valuable to him, especially since few business courses are required to obtain a mortuary science degree.

After graduation, Price beat the high burn-out rate common in the funeral industry, and two years ago he purchased the historic Lamb-Roberts Funeral Home. Founded in 1898 the Lamb-Roberts Funeral Home started out as Lamb’s Funeral Home in both Baldwin City and Wellsville, then expanded to a home in Ottawa later the same year. Along the way, the business transformed into Lamb-Roberts Funeral Home with locations in Baldwin City, Ottawa and Overbook.

As the funeral industry changes rapidly with the steady increase in cremations and custom burials, the newest owner spends each day doing something different to help the 117-year-old business keep pace.

“Every day I wear a different hat,” Price said. “As a funeral director there are days that I am in jeans and a T-shirt setting stones in the cemetery — manual labor.”

Besides changing clothes, Price also changes job duties.

“One day you are meeting with the family, by the end of the day you are in the prep room embalming the body. Being a funeral director and an embalmer … are completely different things in themselves,” he said. “You are there as a grief counselor, then going in and paying bills as the business manager, then changing out of those clothes and embalming.”

Price mentions embalming as being both an art and a science. Although there is a gruesome stigma behind the embalming process, he believes it to be a rewarding experience and not as saddening as most people think.

For any interested students, high school or college, Price is open to chatting about different aspects of the funeral industry: directing funerals, embalming and operations. To learn more, visit www.lamb-roberts.com/contact-us or call him at 785-242-3550.