JOPLIN, Mo. —Following the devastating 2011 Joplin tornado, the city started creating butterfly statues to honor those lives lost in the tornado.
They can be found all throughout the city, but unfortunately in the past few weeks, one was stolen from outside of Stogey’s Coney island in Joplin.
“The second weekend in July, it first went missing,” said Weaver.
The butterfly outside of the restaurant belonged to managers Kelly Weaver and Kristi Waggoner’s late grandmother Jayne Janes, who passed following the tornado.
“We just post about it this week and our customers and our loyal people have just been really accepting and posted a lot of kind things and they’ve shared it and they really wanted to get the word out so they’ve reached out to other people and contacted us and shown their support.”
Their Facebook post has over a thousand shares, with the hopes that their grandmother’s memorial will be found.
“Keep their eyes out for it and we just wanted to share it and the public has already had a great, I’ve already been more than happy with the public’s response and they’re always more than supportive, it’s just so kind of them to come together and show their love and support,”
Waggoner said they placed the memorial in front of their family’s restaurant to pay respect to their grandmother.
“It was my grandma and she, we had stogeys in 1983 and my mom and dad worked for her, were the third generation restaurant owners so there is this significant because they had Gene and Jayne’s Dairy Jane which is very similar to what we have here.”
They say if anyone knows who may have taken it or happens to find it, to call them.
“If anybody sees anything or if they–I don’t know if they see if laying on the side of the road, they can just call us, and we can have somebody go pick it up or you know we’re not wanting anybody to get in trouble. were just wanting to get our butterfly back.”
With Joplin already having such a strong sense of community even ten years after the tornado, they’re confident their city will come together to right this wrong.
To report any leads or findings, you can call Stogey’s Coney Island at (417) 623-2020 or email them at stogeysconeyisland@gmail.com.
COPYRIGHT 2021 BY KOAM NEWS NOW. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.