Latest news with #AbundantLife
American Press
23-05-2025
- General
- American Press
Gail Elaine Cormie
Gail Elaine Noel Cormie, 83, of Lake Charles, passed away on Thursday May 15, 2025, in a local care center following an extended illness. Gail was born in Wichita, Kan. and lived most of her life in the Lake area. She was a health enthusiast that was well known for her cooking skills, but most importantly a devoted wife, mother, grandmother and friend. A true social butterfly, Gail would love to mingle among others and never met a stranger. Her Christian faith was very important to her, and she not only worshiped, but volunteered at her church. For many years she was involved with Glad Tidings, Abundant Life and Inner Court Worship. Those preceding her in death are her beloved husband, Nathan Adam Cormie; daughter, Heather Dawn Babineaux; parents, Willis R. Noel and Juanita Fern (Adams) Anderson; siblings, Judy Miller, John Wesley Anderson and Ronald Ray Anderson Sr. She leaves to honor and cherish her memories her children, Dana Michelle Bodin, Bridgette Caprice Cassell, Shane Cannon Manuel (Anna), and son-in-law, Shannon Babineaux; grandchildren, Larry G. Soileau Jr (Kaylee); Lakyn Hebert Guidry (Ryan) and their child, Reese (and Reed to soon arrive); Adrienne Paige Widcamp (Ryan) and their child, Silas; Zachariah Adam Hebert, Logan Thomas Bodin, Susan Noel Babineaux, Janet Cassell, Samantha Cassell and Matthew Cassell, as well as, numerous cousins, nieces, nephews and extended family of the heart. A gathering of family and friends will be on Saturday May 24, 2025 at the chapel of Johnson Funeral Home of Lake Charles from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m. with a celebration of her life beginning at 11 a.m. Her son, Shane, will co-officiate services with Pastor Greg Simien. Burial will follow at Consolata Cemetery.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
A church called its vision for housing a ‘Beacon of Hope.' The mayor had concerns.
Central City is surrounded by hundreds of square miles of gently rolling land, May 14, 2025. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony) This is the third in a series about homelessness in Western Kentucky. CENTRAL CITY — Pastor Jennifer Banks and other leaders of Abundant Life Church were not sure what to expect when the mayor of this Western Kentucky town called a meeting to talk about their plans for helping people who are experiencing homelessness. They had briefed the mayor and a few city officials once before. This time they were surprised to see downtown business owners and other city officials also gathered in the room. They soon heard that the church's plan — they had dubbed it the 'Beacon of Hope' — was setting off alarms. They were warned that their outreach to locals in need would attract — was already attracting — people from other places, raising fears that the community's already short supply of housing and services would be strained even further. The specter was raised of Austin, Texas, where voters banned panhandling and camping in public places in response to burgeoning encampments. 'What will happen to a city that takes in all of this stuff — it's destroyed,' said Central City Mayor Tony Armour. 'We're short on homes for people that live here, but the more we reach out for people to come in here, the shorter we're going to be for homes.' Zachary Banks provided the Lantern with an audio recording of the meeting. Mayor Armour did not respond to requests seeking an interview about the December gathering. The Lantern sent emails requesting an interview, left messages by phone and in person at city hall. During the meeting, Armour said constituents were complaining about seeing homeless people around the church and about water running off from its mobile shower. 'We've got major people upset here in the city about the church.' Abundant Life had gained a reputation as a place people could come for a meal and other resources. The church had allowed people to sleep in its parking lot when they had nowhere else to go. The Felix Martin Foundation, a local nonprofit, provided a grant to install a mobile shower outside the church. At one point during the meeting, the mayor said to Jennifer Banks, 'You're not seeing the big picture. You're seeing the kindness of your heart, and I appreciate that. I love you for that. But you know what? We're not willing to destroy our community.' 'We're not either, sir,' Banks responded. 'The church was supposed to take care of widows. The church was supposed to take care of orphans. We're supposed to feed. We're supposed to clothe, and at the end of the day, Abundant Life Church-Central City is just trying to be that.' The meeting ended with tentative plans to meet again and Armour saying there were different visions on 'how to move forward and what to do.' The mayor and Abundant Life Church leaders haven't had any meetings since, and the 'Beacon of Hope' plan to buy a local motel and transform it into something more is still in the talking stages. The motel is already a place where people without shelter stay, sometimes paid for by a local church or members of a loose coalition of community members trying to help people experiencing homelessness or unstable housing. The 'Beacon of Hope' idea for the motel: Turn the rooms into efficiency apartments, where tenants could pay rent to build up a financial record, eventually moving on to other housing. Local agencies could come in and provide pop-up services — dental clinics, mental health care — and the church would offer Bible studies. When asked if the idea would be a form of transitional housing, Jennifer Banks said 'what is in our heart fits in no category that already exists. 'If services are offered in one location, even if it's once a month, even if it's once every six months — if it's accessible to you zero times a year, but now it is twice a year, that can change the whole dynamic of everything,' she said. Jennifer Banks said the church is still in conversations with the owner of the Central Inn about a possible purchase. Meanwhile, disagreements over how to help have frayed the informal coalition seeking solutions. Some arguments are over how to help people who are using drugs. The debates also center on numbers: How many people are experiencing homelessness in Muhlenberg County? Does that number justify something like an emergency shelter? AsheLynn Andrews, operator of a tattoo shop in Central City, worked closely with Gwen Clements and Abundant Life Church until they split over who and how to help. In an interview in October, Andrews argued there is no need for a shelter — something she thinks would attract homeless people from other places — because there are only a handful of homeless people in Central City. Clements, on the other hand, says she knows of dozens of people across Muhlenberg County who are homeless at least art of the time. Numbers are fluid, she said, changing depending on the time of year, weather and individual personal circumstances. The Point in Time Count — an annual, federally-coordinated count of the number of people experiencing homelessness across the country on one day of the year — counted just one person as unsheltered in Muhlenberg County in 2024. Advocates for the unhoused and even federal officials acknowledge the count is an underestimate because unsheltered people can be hard to find, the number of volunteers surveying can vary from community to community, the timing of the count in January when it's cold means fewer people are outside, and the count is only a snapshot of one day. Another count by Kentucky school districts that seeks to capture the number of students in unsafe and unstable housing situations reported 34 students, all of them in kindergarten or first grade, in that category in Muhlenberg County during the 2023-24 school year. Muhlenberg County spans hundreds of square miles of rolling hills, making it hard sometimes to find people who are known to be without shelter. Finding them becomes urgent when the weather turns dangerous. In January, the loose coalition sprang into action when bitterly cold air swept across the state, plunging temperatures into the deadly range. Clements took to Facebook, asking her neighbors for donations to put unhoused people into motel rooms at the Central Inn and another hotel. Debra Gorham, a local food pantry director, met Clements at Wendy's, and handed her hundreds of dollars Gorham had gathered for the effort. Clements knew one of the people she had to find was someone she had known years before he started living outside, a man well known for walking the streets of Central City. 'Sometimes it's difficult if you're looking for him, it's difficult to find him because you don't know where he's at, who he's with, where he's staying from day to day,' Clements said. She had to find John Paul Shanks. Next in the Lantern's series: The personal struggles faced by John Paul Shanks and the struggles to find a way to help him. Introduction Part 1: Homeless often means 'invisible,' but not to everyone in this small Kentucky town Part 2: After living outdoors for weeks, she got a place to sleep, a shower — and a job SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
A church called its vision for housing a ‘Beacon of Hope.' The mayor had concerns.
Central City is surrounded by hundreds of square miles of gently rolling land, May 14, 2025. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony) This is the third in a series about homelessness in Western Kentucky. CENTRAL CITY — Pastor Jennifer Banks and other leaders of Abundant Life Church were not sure what to expect when the mayor of this Western Kentucky town called a meeting to talk about their plans for helping people who are experiencing homelessness. They had briefed the mayor and a few city officials once before. This time they were surprised to see downtown business owners and other city officials also gathered in the room. They soon heard that the church's plan — they had dubbed it the 'Beacon of Hope' — was setting off alarms. They were warned that their outreach to locals in need would attract — was already attracting — people from other places, raising fears that the community's already short supply of housing and services would be strained even further. The specter was raised of Austin, Texas, where voters banned panhandling and camping in public places in response to burgeoning encampments. 'What will happen to a city that takes in all of this stuff — it's destroyed,' said Central City Mayor Tony Armour. 'We're short on homes for people that live here, but the more we reach out for people to come in here, the shorter we're going to be for homes.' Zachary Banks provided the Lantern with an audio recording of the meeting. Mayor Armour did not respond to requests seeking an interview about the December gathering. The Lantern sent emails requesting an interview, left messages by phone and in person at city hall. During the meeting, Armour said constituents were complaining about seeing homeless people around the church and about water running off from its mobile shower. 'We've got major people upset here in the city about the church.' Abundant Life had gained a reputation as a place people could come for a meal and other resources. The church had allowed people to sleep in its parking lot when they had nowhere else to go. The Felix Martin Foundation, a local nonprofit, provided a grant to install a mobile shower outside the church. At one point during the meeting, the mayor said to Jennifer Banks, 'You're not seeing the big picture. You're seeing the kindness of your heart, and I appreciate that. I love you for that. But you know what? We're not willing to destroy our community.' 'We're not either, sir,' Banks responded. 'The church was supposed to take care of widows. The church was supposed to take care of orphans. We're supposed to feed. We're supposed to clothe, and at the end of the day, Abundant Life Church-Central City is just trying to be that.' The meeting ended with tentative plans to meet again and Armour saying there were different visions on 'how to move forward and what to do.' The mayor and Abundant Life Church leaders haven't had any meetings since, and the 'Beacon of Hope' plan to buy a local motel and transform it into something more is still in the talking stages. The motel is already a place where people without shelter stay, sometimes paid for by a local church or members of a loose coalition of community members trying to help people experiencing homelessness or unstable housing. The 'Beacon of Hope' idea for the motel: Turn the rooms into efficiency apartments, where tenants could pay rent to build up a financial record, eventually moving on to other housing. Local agencies could come in and provide pop-up services — dental clinics, mental health care — and the church would offer Bible studies. When asked if the idea would be a form of transitional housing, Jennifer Banks said 'what is in our heart fits in no category that already exists. 'If services are offered in one location, even if it's once a month, even if it's once every six months — if it's accessible to you zero times a year, but now it is twice a year, that can change the whole dynamic of everything,' she said. Jennifer Banks said the church is still in conversations with the owner of the Central Inn about a possible purchase. Meanwhile, disagreements over how to help have frayed the informal coalition seeking solutions. Some arguments are over how to help people who are using drugs. The debates also center on numbers: How many people are experiencing homelessness in Muhlenberg County? Does that number justify something like an emergency shelter? AsheLynn Andrews, operator of a tattoo shop in Central City, worked closely with Gwen Clements and Abundant Life Church until they split over who and how to help. In an interview in October, Andrews argued there is no need for a shelter — something she thinks would attract homeless people from other places — because there are only a handful of homeless people in Central City. Clements, on the other hand, says she knows of dozens of people across Muhlenberg County who are homeless at least art of the time. Numbers are fluid, she said, changing depending on the time of year, weather and individual personal circumstances. The Point in Time Count — an annual, federally-coordinated count of the number of people experiencing homelessness across the country on one day of the year — counted just one person as unsheltered in Muhlenberg County in 2024. Advocates for the unhoused and even federal officials acknowledge the count is an underestimate because unsheltered people can be hard to find, the number of volunteers surveying can vary from community to community, the timing of the count in January when it's cold means fewer people are outside, and the count is only a snapshot of one day. Another count by Kentucky school districts that seeks to capture the number of students in unsafe and unstable housing situations reported 34 students, all of them in kindergarten or first grade, in that category in Muhlenberg County during the 2023-24 school year. Muhlenberg County spans hundreds of square miles of rolling hills, making it hard sometimes to find people who are known to be without shelter. Finding them becomes urgent when the weather turns dangerous. In January, the loose coalition sprang into action when bitterly cold air swept across the state, plunging temperatures into the deadly range. Clements took to Facebook, asking her neighbors for donations to put unhoused people into motel rooms at the Central Inn and another hotel. Debra Gorham, a local food pantry director, met Clements at Wendy's, and handed her hundreds of dollars Gorham had gathered for the effort. Clements knew one of the people she had to find was someone she had known years before he started living outside, a man well known for walking the streets of Central City. 'Sometimes it's difficult if you're looking for him, it's difficult to find him because you don't know where he's at, who he's with, where he's staying from day to day,' Clements said. She had to find John Paul Shanks. Next in the Lantern's series: The personal struggles faced by John Paul Shanks and the struggles to find a way to help him. Introduction Part 1: Homeless often means 'invisible,' but not to everyone in this small Kentucky town Part 2: After living outdoors for weeks, she got a place to sleep, a shower — and a job SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Yahoo
What to know about charges against Jeffery Rupnow, father of Abundant Life school shooter
MADISON - Nearly five months after a student opened fire inside a study hall at Abundant Life Christian School, her father has been charged with providing guns to the teen. Here's what to know about the charges and the incident. Teacher Erin West, 42, and freshman Rubi Vergara, 14 were killed in the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School. Six other people were injured, including one teacher. The shooter, Natalie "Samantha" Rupnow, died by suicide after opening fire inside a study hall filled with students from different grades, according to court documents. No officers fired their weapons. Jeffrey Rupnow, the father of the Abundant Life shooter, was arrested by Madison police on May 8. The 42-year-old man was charged with two felony counts of intent to sell a dangerous weapon to a person under 18 and one felony count of contributing to the delinquency of a child. 'Her father knew that she had them, or at least had access to them,' said acting Madison Chief of Police John Patterson at a May 8 news conference. Rupnow was arrested May 8, during a traffic stop in the early hours of the morning. More: The Abundant Life shooting shattered Madison's safety. Here's how the community can support each other. Wisconsin law allows for a felony charge against a parent in situations where they provide a gun or other dangerous weapon to someone under 18, legal experts previously told the Journal Sentinel. Wisconsin statute says that Rupnow's charge, possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18, applies to 'any person who intentionally sells, loans or gives a dangerous weapon to a person under 18 years of age is guilty of a Class I felony." If the shooting results in death, the penalty is a class H felony. The criminal complaint against the father detailed that police had been aware of "high-risk" online behavior from the man's daughter and notified him of in June 2022. At a news conference May 8, Patterson declined to answer questions about whether police or her father knew about her fascination with guns at that point. In a manifesto found in Natalie Rupnow's room during the police investigation, she said she acquired the guns she took to Abundant Life Christian School as a result of "lies and manipulation, and my fathers stupidity" [sic]. Notebooks, dioramas and camcorder footage Madison detectives found in Natalie Rupnow's bedroom offer snapshots into the teenager's point of view. According to the criminal complaint, Natalie Rupnow left behind a manifesto titled "War Against Humanity," with a subtitle reading, "The creation of a disaster and why is it so unfair?" These documents are the first to show Natalie Rupnow's mental state in the weeks leading up to the deadly shooting at her high school. The criminal complaint also offers a lens into the ways adults around Natalie Rupnow responded to her mental health struggles. Four years ago, Jeffrey Rupnow told a detective in a Jan. 29 interview, Natalie Rupnow exhibited signs of suicidal ideation as a student at Black Hawk Middle School. The principal identified Natalie Rupnow using self-harm language and, soon after, was seen at an emergency department, where it was determined there was no immediate threat of self-harm. She would go on to see a therapist 46 times between Oct. 21, 2021, and June 14, 2024. Despite her history of cutting, so severe that Jeffrey Rupnow told detectives he locked up every knife in the house as a precaution, he bought his daughter her first handgun as a Christmas present in 2023. By the time of the Abundant Life shooting, he had gifted her two guns. A third gun was wrapped under his bed for Christmas. According to therapy records, Natalie Rupnow started going to therapy for anxiety, depression, anger and self-harm. When the therapist asked Jeffrey Rupnow if his daughter ever expressed suicidal thoughts, he said "(Natalie) talks about it, I don't take it to seriously [sic]. I think she's really just looking for attention when she talks like that." In the days after the Abundant Life shooting, attention turned to Rupnow's online activity and what it might tell about her motivations. That activity revealed the girl had connections to three other people in the country who either plotted or committed shootings. In April, Florida authorities arrested Damien Allen, 22, for planning a mass shooting. The two appeared to be in an online relationship and told each other they loved one another, according to court records. Those records showed the girl say she "wanted to do a Black church' in reference to possible locations. Allen told her he had several places in mind, including a police department, records said. In Nashville, 17-year-old Solomon Henderson shared similar online networks with her and appeared to admire her, according to a report by Wisconsin Watch. He killed a classmate and then died of a self-inflicted gunshot in a school shooting. It appears Henderson and Rupnow had only a few direct interactions, Wisconsin Watch reported. Henderson was active on social media in communities that glorified school shootings, according to the USA TODAY Network. Since the Columbine shooting, a toxic subculture glorifying mass shooters has formed in online spaces. Much of the internal culture and shared language overlaps with white supremacist and other ideologies. The views in these spaces tend to be incoherent and not necessarily a clear political ideology. Twenty-year-old Alexander Paffendorf, a California man, was also arrested on suspicions of "plotting" to coordinate a mass shooting at a government building in conjunction with her actions, those court records showed. He hoped to pursue a romantic relationship with her, CBS 8 reported. After the December shooting, the Madison community was left with more questions than answers as police searched for the motive behind Natalie Rupnow's action. In the days following the shooting, the community held community mourning events, during which leaders asked for more action from lawmakers to prevent future actions. Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes Conway highlighted May 8 during a news conference that there still had been no meaningful action by state or federal lawmakers to prevent future school shootings. 'What happened at Abundant Life Christian school should have been impossible,' she said. 'Instead, we live in a world where preventing a similar tragedy is what feels impossible, and that is not okay. We need to make it impossible for kids to have access to deadly weapons.' Laura Schulte can be reached at leschulte@ and on X @SchulteLaura. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: What to know about charges against dad of Abundant Life school shooter
National Post
09-05-2025
- National Post
Father of school shooter who killed 2 in Wisconsin religious school faces felony charges
Article content Jeffery Rupnow told investigators that took Natalie shooting with him on a friend's land about two years before the Abundant Life attack. She enjoyed it, and he came to see guns as a way to connect with her. But he was shocked at how her interest in firearms 'snow balled,' he told investigators. Article content He kept Natalie's pistols in a gun safe, telling her that if she ever need them the access code was his Social Security number entered backward. About 10 days before the school attack, he texted a friend and said that Natalie would shoot him if he left 'the fun safe open right now,' according to the complaint. Article content The day before the school attack he took the Sig Sauer out of the safe so Natalie could clean it. But he got distracted and wasn't sure if he put the weapon back in the safe or locked it, according to the complaint. Article content 'War Against Humanity' Article content A search of Natalie's room netted a six-page document the girl had written entitled 'War Against Humanity.' She started the piece by describing humanity as 'filth' and saying she hated people who don't care and 'smoke their lungs out with weed or drink as much as they can like my own father.' Article content She wrote about how she admired school shooters, how her mother was not in her life and how she obtained her weapons 'by lies and manipulation, and my fathers stupidity.' Article content Investigators also discovered maps of the school and a cardboard model of the building, along with a handwritten schedule that detailed how she would being the attack at 11:30 a.m. and wipe out the first and second floors of the school by 11:55 a.m. She planned to end the attack by 12:10 p.m. with a notation 'ready 4 Death.' Article content She had been communicating online with people around the world about her fascination with school shootings and weapons, Acting Madison Police Chief John Patterson said Thursday. Article content Father calls teaching her gun safety 'biggest mistake' Article content Jeffery Rupnow sent a message to a detective two weeks after the school shooting saying that his biggest mistake was teaching Natalie how to handle guns safely and urging police to warn people to change their gun safe combinations every two to three months, the complaint said. Article content 'Kids are smart and they will figure it out,' he wrote. 'Just like someone trying to hack your bank account. I just want to protect other families from going through what I'm going through.' Article content According to the complaint, after learning that Natalie was the shooter while talking to a police officer, Melissa Rupnow began breathing very quickly through her nose and yelled something, to the effect of, 'I'm going to kill him, I'm going to kill him,' apparently referring to her ex-husband. Article content Jeffrey Rupnow is the latest parent of a school shooter to face charges associated with an attack. Article content Last year, the mother and father of a school shooter in Michigan who killed four students in 2021 were each convicted of involuntary manslaughter. The mother was the first parent in the U.S. to be held responsible for a child carrying out a mass school attack. Article content The father of a 14-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting four people at a Georgia high school was arrested in September and faces charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter for letting his son possess a weapon. Article content In 2023, the father of a man charged in a deadly Fourth of July parade shooting in suburban Chicago pleaded guilty to seven misdemeanors related to how his son obtained a gun license. Article content
