A pall has been cast on this years gathering of the Rainbow Family with the death of one of its leaders, Suzy Sunshine, at a camp ground in Utah Sunday morning during the groups Spring council.
“A sister has passed on at spring council. Awaiting positive identification, but information indicates she died at spring council in the nighttime of what they think was a heart attack,” reported one of the group’s unofficial webpages.
“Spring Council is when all potential sites for the gathering are brought to any people who want to be involved in selecting a site. The council usually takes one to seven days and normally ends with either a consensus by silence among people at the council or an exodus of the majority of people heading to the preferred site.” The page explained.
Several sites in White Pine County are reportedly under consideration for the gathering of some 15,000 counter culture followers.
Established in the early 1970’s the Rainbow Family is loose connection of hippies and other counter culture types that meet annually in a national forest somewhere in the United States in the beginning of July. According to rumors on the groups unofficial Facebook page this years gathering will be held in either Utah or Nevada. The last “Family” gathering in Utah was in 2003 near American Fork in the Ashley National forest. The last time the Rainbows came to eastern Nevada was over a decade ago at the Great Basin National Park and the last time they ventured into Elko county was 25 years ago to the Jarbidge area.
The Rainbows complained that they were harassed and so shabbily treated by Elko county law enforcement that they would never return a promise that then Sheriff Jim Miller greeted with joy.
Deputies reported several drug related arrests and confiscated small amounts of marijuana, black tar heroin, hallucinogenic mushrooms and other controlled substances during the 10 day long event. However for a gathering of well over 10,000 people there were virtually no reports of any crime either at the site in Jarbidge or from the nearby towns Rainbow Family members passed through on the way to and from the site.