#3 news story of 2015--A year of suicides--and interest in suicide prevention

(Photo courtesy of Riotous Bloom and Heidi Snell-Anderson)

2015 was a year of two high-profile suicides in Decorah--of a Decorah Middle School 7th grade student and of a Dorchester man whose body was found below the Twin Bridges.

Those two events led decorahnews.com to begin a year-long series of stories about suicide and suicide prevention.

They also led to a group of volunteers organizing the First Annual NE Iowa Step Up, Reach Out Suicide Awareness Walk in late October.  Over 400 people participated--and raised almost $11,000 to help pay for suicide awareness programs in the area.

But beyond the numbers, the event was important because it included a reading of the names of NE Iowa residents who had died from suicide.  Suddenly, suicide was no longer a silent issue in NE Iowa.

http://www.decorahnews.com/archived-stories/2015/10/12072.html