Beloved member of community killed in crash

LAFAYETTE - A bicycle with two trash bags hanging from the handlebars sat at the side of Highway 287 on Friday afternoon. A crowd soon gathered, mourning the loss of its owner - one of the most recognizable residents in the area; someone whose smile they'd miss.

John Breaux, 57, was known and loved by the community. Authorities say he was killed Friday when a 62-year-old Boulder woman in a white PT Cruiser swerved into the shoulder of the northbound lanes of Highway 287 and hit him. Those who gathered on a pedestrian walkway over Highway 287 between Baseline and South Boulder Road were shocked and saddened.

"John's been around for a long time," Lorenza Maksimow, a Lafayette resident, said. "I've been in Lafayette for five and a half years and he's always just happy and smiling and picking up trash and helping wherever he could."

Maksimow says her 12-year-old daughter got out of school Friday afternoon and called her with the news that something had happened to the man everyone simply called "John." She rushed over to the pedestrian bridge.

"I think a lot of people thought, 'Oh he's homeless. He's picking up trash,' and no, it's actually something that he chose to do, and it was what he loved to do for the community," Maksimow said.

Breaux was a fixture around the area. He was always around Lafayette and Louisville on his bike with a grin on his face. In fact, the mayor of Louisville, Chuck Sisk told the Daily Camera the city gave Breaux a bike helmet, hoping to keep him safe.

The Camera reported that in 2005, a "mayoral proclamation" was issued and the town gave him a gift certificate to the Louisville Cyclery "in appreciation for his efforts to keep Louisville a clean city."

Breaux's smile recently was featured in a "Faces of Louisville" photography project by Erin L. Cox. Breaux attended the opening of the gallery.

"John was the Face of Louisville," Cox wrote to 9NEWS in an e-mail on Saturday. "He was an amazing man who touched everyone in the Louisville community. He will be greatly missed. I am heartbroken."

"A lot of people know John around here because he's - you always see him picking up trash or cans, keeping every place clean," Ken Apodaca, a resident who came to the bridge on Friday, said. "I've seen him in parking lots doing it. At the church I go to, he's always picking up stuff after the services are over."

E-mails flooded in to 9NEWS on Friday, some from people who didn't even know him.

"I would like to know more information about this if possible as I always saw him around town and he was so sweet," Kym Shepard wrote.

And many e-mails came from those who did know him.

Amanda Kneebone wrote: "One of the most wonderful men many people knew was hit and killed on 287 today. He was so loved by his community. He was a mentally challenged man named John who worked tirelessly to keep Lafayette and Louisville clean. He deserves much recognition."

Michele Rodriguez wrote: "Words can't begin to express the lives he touched."

"The dead man in this case was poor and challenged, but was a pillar of our little society," Rodriguez added.

Authorities arrested the 62-year-old woman accused of hitting him on Friday, and say they are investigating whether drugs or alcohol were a factor in the crash.

Meanwhile, the residents of the area mourned the loss of a "gentle soul who served the east county in his own way and touched many people in some small way," as Alan Muir put it in an e-mail to 9NEWS.

"I think he made such an impact with the community and with all the kids and all the business owners and community in general," Maksimow said, fighting back tears while authorities investigated on the highway below. "It's going to touch a lot of people and it's a time of reflection of how precious life is and how precious the people around us are."

The community planned to gather in the parking lot of the Albertsons located at 555 W. South Boulder Rd. in Lafayette at 5 p.m. on Saturday to remember Breaux and plan services and a permanent memorial in his honor.