The way literally hundreds of people rallied around the New Smyrna Beach mother of a teenage runaway who was safely reunited with her six days later is among myriad reasons why I call New Smyrna Beach home, where I raise my family and where I work.
Even with public glare of her 16-year-old daughter having been through rehab for prescription pills and alcohol, Jeannie Yunker put her family privacy aside to give law enforcement all the important information needed to try and bring her home unharmed.
Believe me, as someone who has reported on major crime in Volusia County for 15 years and nearly 10 years before that in suburban New York, there have been many 16-year-olds and even younger who never came back.
Jeannie Yunker is reunited with daughter, Tara Jean Yunker, despite any level of parent-child conflicts. Lets be real here: This isn't my parents' generation where dad worked and mother stayed home. It's not easy being a parent in today's electronic world. And it's not easy being a child in today's world where parents aren't together or parts of re-made families are awkwardly blended together.
In that regard, it hasn't been easy for Jeannie Yunker raising an adolescent with a father outside the home. For me, it's just the opposite, being a father raising a 16-year-old boy, with his mother outside the home. And it's even more challenging for my wife trying to fit into the mix.
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Courtesy photo of Tara Jean Yunker.
But from the joy of mother and daughter being reunited, this story has a happy ending, perhaps with some added chapters, for Jeannie Yunker and Tara Jean Yunker to write together.
As one member of the Facebook community that heeded the battle cry of Jeannie Yunker's good friend, Jennifer Patten of DeLand, who rallied friends and extended family on the social media platform to help everyone involved cope with the uncertainty of the safety of a runaway teen girl, one of those supporters said it best when the ending was what everyone prayed for.
Louis Berding on the Facebook page for young Tara Jean Yunker: "Thank God that she was found. Hopefully she's safe and healthy and realizes how many people love her."
New Smyrna Beach certainly has had its share of tragedy, just this year alone with a fatal boat crash, a couple dying of carbon monoxide on a boat, a toddler being struck and killed on the beach and a 14-year-old Orlando girl drowning in the surf while visiting here with her church group.
Despite these horrible events, the Yunker girl's safe return home and how people here and elsewhere rallied around her terrified mother -- nearly 900 joining the Facebook page -- are incredibly awesome reasons to call New Smyrna Beach home.
My home and yours.