At the corner of Fourth Street and Saddler Road in Marrero, regulars entering Butt-Hedz Bar & Grill have been arriving with solemn faces since Thursday, greeted by hugs as they walk in the door.

“Everybody is very sad. We’re numb. We feel gutted,” said Bill Hall, the bar’s owner, describing his customers mourning of his well-known, red-haired manager, Malinda “Mindy” Shano.

Shano and three other motorcyclists were killed by a wrong-way driver Thursday evening in Arkansas while on their way to a motorcycle rally in Oklahoma. Four others from the area were injured.

Arkansas authorities say 29-year-old Ivan Santos crossed the grassy median in his pickup truck on Interstate 40 and hit the motorcycles head-on, the truck exploding and bursting into flames.

Witnesses and first responders said the same thing: the scene on I-40 near Mulberry, Ark., was catastrophic. Jeff Brown, Mulberry’s volunteer fire chief, a 24-year veteran of his department, told KFSM-TV that it was “the most horrific accident I’ve ever seen.”

Shano was killed, along with two fellow riders from Slidell, Patricia “Irish” Lemar and Leonard “Cuban” Lemar. Authorities also reported the death of a fourth person who hasn’t been identified.

On a normal day in Marrero, when Gina Bergeron walked into work at the bar, she would exchange the same greeting with Shano.

“I would ask her how was her day and she’d say, ‘I’m living the dream,’” said Bergeron, an assistant manager at the bar, which prides itself as such an easygoing getaway that Hall nicknamed it, “The Camp.”

The watering hole and grill is frequented by retired first responders and military, along with people from the surrounding neighborhood who come for its cocktails, tap beer and casual food, including homemade meat-pies, lots of chicken wings and hamburgers.

Shano did the bar’s payroll and scheduling, ordered food and booze and calculated food-cost evaluation and liquor cost, Hall said.

“Basically, she ran the show,” he said. “She used to smirk to me, 'When you got me as a manager, you didn’t realize that I knew how to change spark plugs in an engine,' she said. She used to drive an 18-wheeler. She could cook, bartend, do sheetrock, electrical and carpeting.”

While she was generous and big-hearted, she also would eject people when necessary. “That was Mindy. Kind as can be. To know her is to love her. But she was also full of fire. She would stand her ground,” Hall said.

The four injured riders were from Slidell, Lafitte and Gretna. Family of 48-year-old Larry Alexie of Lafitte told WWL he suffered second degree burns and was released from the hospital Friday. 

Also injured were 44-year-old Robert Day of Gretna and 49-year-old Derrick Reynolds of Slidell. The extent of their injuries is unknown.

Shano was a member of the all-woman organization, Sisters of the Cross of the Mighty Black Sabbath Motorcycle Club, while some of the others were with the partner men’s club, the Black Sabbath Motorcycle Club, which is based on the north shore.

Rebecca, the 19-year-old daughter of Patricia and Leonard Lemar, has started a GoFundMe page to raise money to bury both of her parents, who were members of the same club. 

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