UNION – A plaque honoring Sunshine Stewart is now mounted to a boulder at the edge of an island on Crawford Pond, and while Stewart’s sister Kim Ware is encouraging the public to visit the spot in Stewart’s honor, Ware is also helping to advocate for women to stand up and reclaim their right to be outdoors and enjoy nature.

“We’re just closing the loop, making sure the community, again, is safe here, and everyone feels safe to come out on the lake...and enjoy it….without fear,” said Ware.

A month following Stewart’s murder, July 2, 2025, the homicide – allegedly at the hands of a 17-year-old boy – many women in Knox County who consider going on solo hikes, trail runs, paddles, or other nearby adventures continue to wonder if they’ll be next.

Erja Lipponen helped organize a group of people who wanted to attend the plaque acknowledgment, Aug. 7, 2025. Lipponen also happens to live on Crawford Pond.

“I didn’t know Sunny, but I feel like Sunny represents each one of us,” Lipponen told a broadcast news reporter who covered the event. “Every woman and every man should be able to go out and enjoy nature, alone, without being careful….This is my favorite place to paddle. The night when she went out, on the 2nd [of July], I thought about going out that night….And I would have gone in that cove where she was found. It really hits home. I just want women to be safe – everybody to be safe. To me, tonight was really meaningful, and it felt really good to have so many people come and celebrate Sunny’s life.”

On what would have been Stewart’s 49th birthday, Ware and one of Stewart’s classmates organized a paddleboard expedition to the new plaque on a point in the causeway. In the search for, and then the investigation of Stewart, who had set off paddleboarding from a nearby campground, detectives focused on a time frame starting at 6 p.m., which was when she was last seen. Ware and the others planned the birthday event so that the plaque recognition would take place around 6:15 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

A community came. Paddle boards, kayaks, and canoes pulled in close. Several party boats floated around the perimeter. Many did not know her. Some came from residences along Crawford Pond. Others came because of the ripple affect of her tragedy. Most people wore yellow, the color that Stewart loved.

Lipponen described the gathering and the tossing of flowers onto the water as a release of energy, tension.

“To be able to do that, with a group, and share it together, is just a really wonderful experience,” she said.

Lipponen said it was important to reclaim the lake and to honor Sunny, who has been described as independent. She didn’t fit in to any box, and she lived fearlessly.

“Like we all should,” said Lipponen.

Stewart’s favorite color is also the color for Finding Our Voices, a grassroots domestic violence advocacy initiative that began in Knox County four years ago.

With the murder of another strong, independent, fearless woman, it’s a scary time to be a woman, said Patrisha McLean, founder of FOV.

McLean decided to attend the gathering so as to be among the group and to join in solidarity for justice against violence toward women.

“There are men who want women to be inside, cooking their dinner, having their babies,” said McLean. “That’s what part of tonight was about; we’re pushing back against that.”

McLean said this homicide especially struck her because Stewart was strangled. Strangulation hasn’t been talked about enough, she said.

“The idea of just a man putting his hands around their neck, having their life in his hands – that is so frightening and so common,” she said. “This is what happened here.”

As a domestic abuse survivor, McLean’s message to women is: You can’t be ruled by fear.

“We still need to go out and do the things we want to do, by ourselves, in nature,” she said. “Reclaim these spaces and take our power back. And be able to do these things by ourselves.”

Reach Sarah Thompson at news@penbaypilot.com