By Lori EhdeJeff Hartquist is now officially in charge at Hartquist Funeral Home, Engebretson Chapel, Luverne.His father, Randy Hartquist, Pipestone, bought Engebretson Funeral Home from Vertin Company in January. The eventual plan was to have Jeff, a mortician in Minneapolis, move to Luverne to head up operations here.Those plans were fast-forwarded, however, when then director Dave Anderson left Luverne to pursue a professional opportunity in northern Minnesota.That absence starting Feb. 5 left Randy scrambling to fill the void in Luverne at a time when local obituary pages were filled top to bottom. "They were really accommodating," said Lois Nath, who works at the Engebretson Chapel. "You called and they were here. "He was devoted to serving those families."Jeff said those two months clearly illustrated the importance of area chapels being able to draw on each other’s staff.He said night and weekend hours can take their toll on funeral directors and their families, so clusters of funeral homes under the same ownership can provide a leadership pool to spread the work.In addition to Pipestone and Luverne, the Hartquist father-son team now own chapels in Jasper, Lake Benton and Tyler."The nice thing about the scheme of this is by owning the different chapels, it allows the directors to share locations and ultimately have some time off," Jeff said.While he didn’t plan to come to Luverne until later this year, Jeff started instead on April 4."I’m just excited about being here, and hopefully we can be an asset to the community," he said.Jeff graduated from Pipestone High School in 1997.He has a business degree from Concordia College, Moorhead, and studied mortuary science at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.He’s spent the past few years gaining experience with Washburn McReavy, which owns a dozen chapels in Minneapolis and handles about 2,700 funerals each year."I definitely had ample opportunity to get experience working with them," Jeff said.His wife, Sara, is finishing out the school year with Hugo Elementary in St. Paul, where she’s a school psychologist."She has fun telling people that we’ve been married only four months and we’re already separated," Jeff said.Sara plans to join Jeff in Luverne after June 11.He said people in the community have been pleasant, and he’s glad to be living in a city that takes pride in appearances."The houses are kept up, the streets are clean and the parks are nice," he said, describing Luverne as progressive. "It’s impressive for a small town."