Butler County honors 44 lives lost to addiction with vigil
The Butler County Opioid Coalition paid solemn tribute to 44 lives that were lost last year to the scourge of opioid addiction, and many more over the preceding years.
The International Overdose Awareness Day observance was held Sunday, Aug. 31, starting with a vigil at the Grace Community Wellness Center in Butler. A remembrance walk followed down Main Street, with about 100 participants holding candles.
For Kayla Roy, who lost her best friend, Ralene Michael, to addiction in 2006, Sunday night’s event brought a chance to pay tribute.
“She was a wonderful person. She enjoyed helping people with disabilities, and she was a cheerleading coach,” Roy said. “The pain gets lower at times, but on the anniversary it really takes a toll on me.”
During the Butler County Remembers ceremony, the first two rows of seats in the community center were reserved for 44 purple balloons representing those who died from addiction in Butler County last year.
As participants walked into the center, they were handed a card with a heart-shaped seed paper. On the back of the card was the “Serenity Prayer,” which starts with, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”
During the remembrance ceremony, Kay Huemme rung a bell for each of the 44 who died.
The ceremony was punctuated by two guest speakers, both of whom had loved ones die from overdoses last year. The first was Sonya Kremer, whose brother, Nathan Huber, died May 21.
“At the age of 16, he first became involved in drugs,” Kremer said. “It was just a small step, but none of us would have imagined the fight he had. If you’ve lost someone from addiction, I’m going to ask you right now to say their name out loud.”
In addition to Kremer, several attendees came to the podium to share their own stories of loss.
The first, Sarah Ritchie, spoke of her own struggles with addiction, and paid tribute to her friend, Elaine Wood, whom she met in a sober living house.
“This October the 30th will be five years since she lost her fight to this disease,” Ritchie said. “If it wasn’t for her, I probably wouldn’t be standing here today. She taught me about honesty with how freely she was honest with the people around her about what was going wrong. I had never seen anybody really do that before.
“She was my friend, and she was someone in recovery who people could look up to.”
Another, Debbie Finucan, came to mourn the loss of her sister, Dayna, who died in June 2021.
“When she wasn’t affected by this disease, she loved life,” Finucan said. “She really, really tried to get sober for years. She had gone to some recovery night meetings on Saturday. But the stuff that’s out there right now is so deadly that one moment of weakness, unfortunately, was her last one.”
After the memorial walk, the attendees returned to the fountain in Diamond Park on Main Street to dedicate a plaque with the names of all 44 who died of addiction in 2024.
According to Tracey Hendrix, of the Butler County Drug and Alcohol Program, the plaque will soon become part of a porch swing at the Center on Center, a recovery community center on Center Avenue in Butler.
