Abstract Objectives: To identify a simple and effective means for public health professionals in rural communities to identify excess mortality using publicly available data. Methods: Online data from four rural funeral homes, and obituary data from the most widely circulated newspaper in the same region were collected from January 2017 through December 2020. A three-year monthly average of death listings was created for 2017-2019 and compared, month-by-month with the amount of 2020 death listings. Results: The four funeral homes reported a total of 3,957 deaths, and there were 7,623 newspaper obituaries published between January 2017 and December 2020. In the five-month period following the first COVID-19 death in the region on July 28, 2020, funeral home reports and newspaper obituaries reported a 20.2% and a 14.5% increase in deaths, respectively, for 2020 compared to the prior three-year average. Conclusion: During the five months following the first death attributed to COVID-19, funeral home reports and newspaper obituaries both identified a significant increase in deaths over the monthly average death listings of the three years prior. Policy Implications: Local public health officials may be able to use a multi-year, month-by-month summary of deaths, as reported by funeral homes and/or newspaper obituaries, to provide an “early indicator” of excess mortality in rural areas.