Marsha Ingram wants to report a missing dragon. Named Rupert, it was last seen snaking its way around her pond at 5608 Shelby County 17 on New Year’s Eve.

Rupert is orange and green and made in three plastic pieces.

“It was made by my friend Charles McGraw at the Lakeshore Foundation. He and his wife, Mary, and Frances Cook delivered it to me”, Ingram said. I would welcome it back with no questions asked”.

Ingram herself is a friend of Lakeshore Foundation, having been going there for more than 20 years to interact with people who are in pain.

“God wanted me to be there. It’s scary to think how long you might be in that kind of pain, and I teach them beading and crocheting to help focus their minds beyond the pain,” she said.

Ingram was a labor/delivery room nurse, who injured her back in 1986. After therapy and surgery, she returned to work. In 1990 she had a spinal fusion that allowed her to walk again. Then the fusion broke and the surgeon repaired the wrong side of the disk, leaving it permanently hardened.

This impossibly painful condition requires Ingram to have a Medtronic pump that administers medication every 90 minutes. Ingram continues to exude a positive spin on life.

“Marsha can pull me out of the deepest, darkest state of mind,” said Lora Lunsford. “Her experiences have shaped her. She supports and holds a lot of people.”

Marsha Ingram teaches ongoing classes at Bead Biz on the Circular Peyote Stitch.

“I enjoy teaching people how to make something they can be proud of,” she said.

Ingram also makes ‘Yard Jewelry’ — concrete stepping stones in which she embeds pottery, shells, stones, trivets and collected objects. The stones create a path around her pond and appear in her garden. To move the stones around, she hitches her dog, Dargo, to a wagon.

The Ingrams also grow a garden.

“I wheel myself over and then put down a carpet pad and crawl on my hands and knees to plant and weed,” Ingram explains.

Ingram lives her belief that “sometimes we can use the difficulties that appear in our lives — as we learn to deal with our own situation — to reap benefits for others.”

And should you come across a certain dragon, please call Marsha or Gary Ingram at 383-3010.

Laura Brookhart can be reached by e–mail at labro16@yahoo.com.