Find Lauren Spierer: PLEASE READ!

Good evening.  Hope that you had a great Monday.  We had major storms here in Indianapolis this morning so I was unable to run early and this caused me to be in an uncharacteristic funky mood on Monday.  Fortunately, the weather broke this afternoon and I was able to run 6 miles.  I'm not in a funk anymore.  Thank goodness for that.  Tonight, I have a very important blog post that I hope you'll read and pass along to your friends and family.  There are people who read this blog from all over the US and in several different countries around the world.  Please, please, please share what I'm blogging about this evening.

On June 3, 2011 at 4:30a a 20 year-old Indiana University student named Lauren Spierer vanished.  She was seen on cameras in the area around College Avenue and Walnut Street in Bloomington, but not seen since.  For a complete timeline please follow this link:  http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.aspx?id=81967
Lauren is a college student and we all care about someone who reminds us of Lauren.  She's your daughter.  She's your best friend.  She's your sister.  She's your cousin.  She's that person you sat beside in class.  She's the person you see every Tuesday in the Gym.  The point is that you know Lauren because if you think about it hard enough she represents someone we all love and care for deeply.  I've been following this story since it happened and today her family asked those of us who follow @NewsOnLaurenS  on Twitter to blog about her and her story.  To my friends and family, I ask you to forward this blog post to your friends and family members to spread the word. 

As many of you know, I work in Residence Life at IUPUI and I've worked at IU, UGA, and Sonoma State.  I have the good fortune to work with college students every single day and I cannot imagine the despair I'd feel if one of the students I know personally just vanished.  It would be heartbreaking and that is why Lauren's story is so heartbreaking.  She represents the best of what I do for a living--which is the opportunity to work with college students and influence their lives in a positive way.  She was doing what college students do--staying up late with friends and having fun.  To my colleagues in Student Affairs:  Lauren is one of our own and I ask you to pass along her story.

There are many ways you can help find Lauren.  If you are not in the Bloomington area then you can simply spread her message by forwarding this blog post, by following @NewsOnLaurenS on Twitter, by going to facebook.com/find.lauren,  and by passing along this link: http://newsonlaurens.blogspot.com/2011/06/friday-evenings-tweet-please-rt.html.  Even if you live far, far away, you can make sure Lauren's story is heard.  You just never know what might help and in this world that gets smaller by the day  you may have or someone you know may have seen or heard something.  You can have people submit information if they think they have seen her (see the picture posted in this blog entry).  If you live in the Central Indiana area  you can assist by volunteering or organizing others to volunteer (http://newsonlaurens.blogspot.com/2011/06/will-you-become-find-lauren-search.html). 


I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog post this evening and I hope that you will commit to sharing this with everyone you can.  We all know someone who reminds us of Lauren.  Thank you for reading this and I wish you the best...