HURON –– When tragedy strikes a community, it can often snowball. In a modern era of social media-induced doom scrolling, the snowballing can happen faster and more significantly, leading frequently to a community in disarray, attempting to deal with a number of difficult events impacting all at one time.

The beginning of 2025 saw multiple suicides among teenagers in the Huron area, and while many people had difficulty wrapping their minds around the tragedy of the moment, one Huron High School senior decided to step forward and encourage her community in its path moving forward.

“I thought that we needed to come together on our conversations about what was going on,” Cadence Kogel recalled. “I thought, ‘What better way to start those conversations than t-shirts?’”

Kogel reached out to Connie Winegar, owner of PB Sports and a suicide prevention advocate herself, and found a very willing partner.

The shirts feature phrases such as “your story is not over yet” and “you matter” along with a semicolon and, on one design, a heart.

“She came in, we got on Etsy, and we picked out a few design options pretty quick,” Winegar laughed, explaining that the heart shirt could be seen as “girly,” so multiple designs were explored. “It affects everyone, so it’s really something that everyone can relate to.”

The semicolon has become a symbol in suicide prevention and awareness, using the punctuation mark as a symbol. As a semicolon indicates a pause and continuation of a sentence, within suicide prevention, the mark has come to symbolize moving forward after a delay or a pause.

Many who are actively working through mental health struggles or have faced suicidal thoughts have made a semicolon the most popular tattoo among surveyed tattoo artists by Inked magazine in 2023.

Kogel and Winegar intended for the shirts to promote mental health awareness and to be worn on Monday for the Day of Hope in Huron. Day of Hope is Monday, May 19, in Huron to share mental health awareness and reduce stigma surrounding mental health.

The shirt quickly exploded, with more orders than Kogel or Winegar had ever estimated.

“A lot of businesses have contacted to find out how they can be involved as well,” Kogel explained. “The flower shops have balloons now that you can get along with some mental health resources for businesses to have out for customers or employees.”

For the seniors, who will have graduated before the event at school on Monday, “goody bags” were put together with mental health resources and other items and handed out at baccalaureate Wednesday evening.

Counseling staff from the high school and mental health providers in town will be at the high school on Monday as part of Day of Hope to share resources.