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Two of those angels represented Clark County children -- Michaela Watkins, 10, and Wesley Mullins, 6 -- victims of violence in incidents five months apart. In both cases, trusted adults have been charged with their slayings.
"We must become more responsible to make life better for all children," the Rev. Samuel Peoples, pastor of Broadway Baptist Church, said at a memorial service on the Clark County Courthouse steps in mid-April. "Look at the marks, and don't assume everyone just fell down and got back up again."
The service was dedicated to Michaela and Wesley, but the annual event also recognizes the epidemic of child abuse on a wider scale. Clark Judge-Executive Henry Branham and Winchester Mayor Ed Burtner declared April Child Abuse Prevention Month.
Michaela was found dead on March 11, 2007, at the apartment of her father and stepmother, Patrick and Joy Watkins, who were charged with murder. They have pleaded not guilty in Clark Circuit Court.
The state medical examiner's office reported that Michaela's death was the result of a "flailed chest due to blunt force trauma caused by an object," which might have been a 2-inch by 4-inch piece of wood.
Wesley was bludgeoned to death Aug. 4 in a storage garage behind his grandfather's house in Paris. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.
Louis A. "Buck" Ballard, 48, was charged with capital murder and sodomy nearly a month later. Ballard's arrest came the day before Wesley would have celebrated his seventh birthday. The suspect and Wesley's grandfather, Bobby Mullins, were roommates for three years.
Peoples said the Clark County community can't keep quiet about child abuse or assume it doesn't happen here. "Children have a right to be raised in a way that they can enjoy life."
Choirs from Strode Station Elementary and Conkwright Middle sang, and the teachers of Michaela and Wesley, Amy Reece and Mike Hamilton, read poems for the students they lost.
Balloons -- purple and green, Michaela and Wesley's favorite colors -- bounced in the wind, and participants wore pale blue ribbons, a symbol for the plight of abused children.
