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Hundreds were on hand at the vigil for Mickey Shunick, Tuesday evening at Parc Sans Souci in downtown Lafayette, with candles in hand hoping to light the way home for the missing woman. |
In the beginning, Parc Sans Souci was cloaked in a solemn vibe as hundreds of anxious faces milled about, engaged in hushed conversations of both hope and fear. They came to this vigil Tuesday evening for the missing 22-year-old, Michaela “Mickey” Shunick, last seen in the wee hours of Saturday morning, some three days ago, riding her bike home from the Saint Streets to the Ambassador/Congress area. Mickey was 21 when she vanished. Monday was her 22nd birthday.
Intermixed in the crowd, volunteers wearing T-shirts with "missing" posters imprinted on them handed out candles for later on. Tables on either side of the tiered, semi-circular stage also had buckets of them. Downtown Lafayette assisted with the event.
When called to order, most of the crowd took a seat on the cement in front of the stage, while others stood to the rear of them. The park became as quiet as a church. Volunteers and Mickey's family sat in chairs on the stage.Above and behind them, a modest banner with the words stacked top to bottom, Bring Mickey Home, was suspended between the stage's pillars. The words Bring and Home, like the balloons tied to the pillars and gently bouncing in an occasional slight dusk breeze, are purple – Mickey’s favorite color.
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Josh Coen (left) and Emily Romein (right) support their friend and co-volunteer Ashley Says as she talks about their mutual friend, Mickey Shunick. |
Contrary to the atmosphere, in a photo radiating from the sign, the blue-eyed Mickey smiles broadly, framed by her wavy white-blonde hair.
Members of the clergy offered solace and prayer, and volunteers came forward to talk about the missing coed, their voices at times choked with emotion. Those on hand learned that the initial reward of $10,000, an anonymous donation, grew to $20,000 in short time and the volunteers went from 12 at the outset to 750, and more are welcome to help at 100 Ryan St.
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| The Rev. Ann Sutton (left) and Mickey Shunick's immediate family, her father Tom Shunick, mother Nancy Rowe, brother Zach Shunick and sister Charlie Shunick tend to their candles at Tuesday's vigil at Parc Sans Souci. |
Near the close, the substantial support group lit their candles and Christine Peirce accompanied by Ryan Dejean on guitar, sang The Beatles’ “All You Need is Love." The gathering gradually joined in at the chorus “… all you need is love… all you need is love… all you need is love .. love, love .. love is all you need …” Righteous frissons buoyed by the power of love swept through the crowd, lifting its collective spirit.
At rally’s end, with the Shunick family and volunteers standing together arm-in-arm on the lip of the stage, and the crowd, with stars in their hands and hope in their hearts, the uneasy and nervous energy at the start of the vigil transformed into a semi-defiant mantra: “Bring Mickey home!” “Bring Mickey home!” “Bring Mickey home!” “Bring Mickey home!”
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| The face of Charlie Shunick, Mickey Shunick's younger sister, says it all at Tuesday's vigil. |
Here are the official details:
Mickey was reported missing Saturday, May 19, at approximately 2 a.m. She was last seen leaving Ryan Street near downtown Lafayette at 1:45 am on a black Schwinn Madison fixed gear bicycle with glittery gold handlebars. Mickey was heading towards her home on Governor Miro Drive (near the Ambassador Caffery /Congress intersection). She is an avid cyclist and made this trip regularly on bike.
Mickey is a Caucasian female with shoulder-length white blonde curly hair, blue eyes, and is approximately 5'1” and 115 pounds. She has a small tattoo of a bicycle on her right outer ankle and a nose ring on her left nostril. She was last seen wearing a pastel striped shirt, light wash denim skinny jeans, and silver ankle boots. She would have been carrying a light brown leather backpack, a black and yellow Vera Bradley wallet, a black Verizon slider phone (which has been turned off), and a small pink container of mace.
If you have information, contact the Lafayette Police Department at 337-291-8633, email here, or go here on Facebook.
Young equestrians, students of Mickey Shunick, participate in the vigil Tuesday for their missing teacher.
JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
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