You're from Pequot Lakes ... Did you know Dru?

Here's a column published in Tuesday's Dispatch that I wrote about Dru Sjodin:

“You’re from Pequot Lakes. ... So, did you know Dru Sjodin?”


It’s a question I’ve gotten about a half-dozen times this summer when I’ve met new people, whether it be while I was hanging out with friends or out on assignment for the newspaper doing stories on area festivals and other events.

And it’s a question that’s tough for me to answer.

No, I did not know Dru. I graduated from Pequot Lakes High School years before she did, although I have a faint memory of seeing Dru at my cousin’s high school graduation party at my aunt’s and uncle’s home. Dru graduated from PLHS in 2000 and my cousin, Hans Tweed, graduated in 1998 with Dru’s brother, Sven.

That’s the simple answer, but it’s not entirely accurate.

I did know Dru, not in life but in death. I covered the extensive search for Dru after she went missing from a Grand Forks shopping mall Nov. 22, 2003. I spent those five months writing stories about Dru and the impact her disappearance had on those from Pequot Lakes. I interviewed my neighbors, my former teachers, Dru’s family and friends, including my cousin, who took a leave from college to spend those months searching the snow-covered fields of North Dakota in sub-zero temperatures for his missing friend.

Along with hundreds of other people, including my daughter and most of my extended family members, I lit a pink candle, in hopes that Dru would return home, at a candlelight vigil for Dru in downtown Pequot Lakes in December 2003.

Dru did come home, but not the way anyone had wished for. Her body was found April 17, 2004, in a ravine near Crookston. Along with more than 1,500 people, I attended Dru’s funeral on April 24, 2004, at Grand View Lodge in Nisswa.

As emotionally detached a news reporter may attempt to be while covering difficult stories like this, it was particularly heart-wrenching for me to watch the tears streaming down the faces of my cousin and his friends as they tried so hard to be strong as they carried Dru’s casket into the resort’s convention center during the memorial service.

After Dru’s funeral, her casket was placed in a white funeral coach, which led the long processional from Nisswa through Pequot Lakes to Crow Wing County Road 16 on the way to Crosslake, where she was buried in the Pinewood Cemetery. Along the way, cars in the southbound lane slowed down and stopped along the road to show their respect to Dru and her family.

And in a simple act that seemed to symbolize the five-month search for Dru, the processional came to a halt in Ideal Township as Dru’s family, along with the funeral coach, took a side trip on Ruttger Road to the home of Linda and Sid Walker, Dru’s mother and stepfather.

Dru’s family, true to their promise to Dru while she was missing, had brought their daughter home.

The pink bows, placed around Pequot Lakes after Dru went missing, were taken down long ago in the city. After a year or so the tiny pink ribbon that had been taped to Dru’s senior photo in her senior class photo display in the hallway at Pequot Lakes High School was removed, too.

But that doesn’t mean the Pequot Lakes college student has been long forgotten.

Visitors may stop by Dru’s Garden, located across from Silver Creek Traders in Pequot Lakes in the Trailside Park, a living tribute to a hometown girl who loved art, elephants and butterflies and whose life was tragically cut too short. It’s a great reflective place to stop after biking or walking on the nearby Paul Bunyan Trail.

And thanks to Dru’s family and other supporters, her unnecessary death has spurred action. On July 27, President George Bush signed into law The Adam Walsh Protection and Safety Act, in which Dru’s Law is included. Dru’s Law requires convicted child molesters to be listed on a national Internet database and face a felony charge for failing to update their whereabouts.

Opening statements in the trial of her accused killer, Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., a convicted sex offender, began Monday. And for the first time since Dru’s body was found, prosecutors presenting their case against Rodriguez to jurors released some of the graphic details of her violent death.

It’s not an easy thing to hear or read. I felt like I had received a swift sucker punch to the gut while I watched the news Monday and learned how Dru was killed. I’m sure many others in Pequot Lakes were feeling the same thing.

But, I guess after this initial shock, I prefer instead to focus on the glowing pink vigil candles, the many pink bows lining the Pequot Lakes streets, the countless volunteers who searched for a woman they never knew and finally, the life of a young woman who will never know the humanity she left behind in her hometown community.

JODIE TWEED can be reached at jodie.tweed@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5858.


On the Net:
Dru's Voice, the Sjodin family's official website dedicated to Dru Sjodin.