March 14, 2023 • Volume 26, Issue 6 • Complimentary • BlufftonSun.com
INSIDE • Buzzards gathering at Martin Family Park deemed success 12A • Youngsters given added mobility through therapy cars project 15A • March Madness holds special memories for Bluffton doctor 19A • Resident pushes for more education about litter issues 21A • Apply for school choice by March 31 25A
Niece’s fentanyl death sends Beaufort woman on a mission By Gwyneth J. Saunders CONTRIBUTOR
More than 1,200 mostly smiling, happy faces look back from the pages of the National Fentanyl Prevention and Awareness Day website. Some are as young as 17, and maybe younger. Others are age 42 or more. Like Battery Creek High School graduate Shelbi Dale Crippen – whose photo is amongst them – they all died from a dose of fentanyl. Crippen’s death on April 16, 2021, affected family members differently. Her aunt, Sherri Navarre, said her sister, Jacki Hanners, still has difficulty talking about her daughter. After resurfacing from deep depression over her niece’s death, Navarre has taken up the fight for all of them and is on a mission to promote awareness and prevention “because I don’t want any other families to go through this.” Crippen grew up in Beaufort, loved cosmetology and talked about becoming a nurse, Navarre said, but soon after graduation she met someone who introduced
her to hydrocodone. It wasn’t long before her family began noticing changes in her behavior. “After she started dating him, my sister was noticing things that were going on and how she was acting,” she said. “She picked up on it and got Shelbi out of there. She went to rehab and did well for a while, but soon she was back on drugs with someone different.” Navarre recalled that Crippen was beautiful, very intelligent and loving. She occasionally made the honor roll, loved all her friends and family deeply, and loved animals, especially elephants and her guinea pigs. “She was just the girl next door. She was just a beautiful loving child. She was funny as all get out and would always keep us rolling,” said Navarre. On a more serious note, she said her mission is specifically to spread awareness about illicit fentanyl, the cause of Crippen’s death. “She couldn’t fight that demon. She went to rehab three times and the last time was the longest she was without drugs,” she said.
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PHOTOS BY GWYNETH J. SAUNDERS
With a photo of her niece on the table, Sherri Navarre, aunt of Shelbi Dale Crippen, who died from a dose of illicit fentanyl, talks about her mission to educate others about the dangerous opioid.
Crippen worked several jobs, finally settling at Lowe’s, a job Navarre said she really loved. While working there, Crippen was also keeping in touch with a man she had met at the Beaufort Water
Festival. After several months of talking on the phone, she went to visit him in Texas, and soon there was talk about
Please see FENTANYL on page 8A