Say Anything Blog

More than 1,000 people showed up for Dru Sjodin's funderal. Sjodin was the University of North Dakota student who was abducted and killed a few months ago.

From The Associated Press:

More than 1,000 mourners packed a resort lodge and overflowed from two tents for the funeral of slain University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin, who was remembered for her generous heart and infectious spirit.

The lodge was one of the few places in northern Minnesota large enough to hold such a crowd.

The body of Sjodin, 22, who grew up in nearby Pequot Lakes, was found April 17, five months after she disappeared from a Grand Forks, N.D., shopping mall parking lot.

The Rev. Mark Anderson told mourners that the community had moved from shock to anger to fear.

"Lastly, we became a community of sorrow," he said.

"We are here to begin the process of saying farewell to Dru," he said. "It's not a one-day shot."

Things like kidnappings and murders don't happen very often in North Dakota, so when they do sadness has a ripple effect in the community. We all feel it. That being said, I just don't think its appropriate for 1,000 people to show up at a funeral.

A funeral is for the friends and family of the deceased. When 1,000 people show up I can't help but feel that some people are there more for themselves then for the family. I feel like they're taking the oppurtunity to make a spectacle out of the event and draw attention to themselves. Let the friends and family of Dru Sjodin say goodbye in peace.

That's just my two cents. Perhaps Dru's family wanted it that way. Its not my place to tell them how to say goodbye, but if I were running things the funeral would have been an intimate affair.

I feel the same way when I hear the media questioning why the President isn't attending the funerals of fallen soldiers. Those funerals are supposed to be for the friends and family of the dead soldier. It shouldn't be turned into a media event.