Portrait of slain NHP trooper to adorn Rose Parade float

Family members of slain Nevada State Police Highway Patrol Trooper Micah May on Thursday put the finishing touches on a portrait to adorn a float in the Rose Parade in honor of May’s life-saving organ donations after his death in 2021.

May’s likeness in the circular artwork made of organic materials known as a floragraph will join the images of 43 other people to be placed on the Donate Life float for the annual parade, set for Jan. 2 in Pasadena, California.

May “was an organ donor, and saved lives, and that’s why he’s being honored,” said Celena Dilullo, president of Palm Mortuaries and Cemeteries in Las Vegas.Dilullo.

A ceremony scheduled for tonight at The Pass Casino in Henderson will include May’s wife, Joanna, and representatives of the Highway Patrol, Palm Mortuaries and the Las Vegas nonprofit Nevada Donor Network, said Christina Hernandez, spokeswoman for the donor network.

May’s heart, liver and two kidneys saved the lives of three people, Hernandez said.

Palm, in conjunction with the donor network, chose May to represent Southern Nevada in this year’s parade, which would be Virginia-based Donate Life’s 28th year with a float there to promote organ and tissue donations. Palm has participated in the program for 14 years, Dilullo said.

The donor selected from Northern Nevada is Johnathan Mondt, a 29-year-old man from Winnemucca who died earlier this year. His floragraph completion ceremony will commence on Nov. 30 at the Winnemucca Convention Center, according to Ashley Bunton, a spokeswoman for Palm.

Volunteers for Donate Life, using a photo provided by the donor’s family, fashion most of the floragraph portrait, using organic components such as dried flowers and plants, leaving the eyebrows unfinished.

The portrait is then sent to the donor’s family to complete it, to be part of the process, before it is sent back for inclusion on the float, Dilullo said.

The eyebrows are typically filled in by pouring dried coffee grounds over glue brushed on the portrait, Hernandez said.

May. 46, suffered fatal injuries on Interstate 15 near Sahara Avenue in July 2021, after a reckless driver in a stolen vehicle crashed into him, trapping the trooper inside the windshield, the highway patrol reported.

The suspect, Douglas Claiborne, 60, had eluded authorities during a 30-mile chase. May, among the law enforcement officers pursuing him, had just laid down spike strips in the roadway to deflate the suspect’s tires when Claiborne steered the vehicle toward him.

May remained stuck inside the windshield for about a mile until Claiborne stopped near the Spring Mountain Road exit, where officers observed him attempting to remove May’s firearm from his belt.

Three state Parole and Probation officers and an NHP trooper then opened fire, killing Claiborne. The Clark County coroner’s office said an autopsy showed Claiborne, from Hawaii, died from gunshot wounds and had methamphetamine in his system.

May passed away two days later. The cause was blunt force trauma, and he was not hit by any of the shots fired, the office concluded.

He became only the second NHP trooper to die in the line of duty in nearly 30 years, according to the FBI.

Contact Jeff Burbank at jburbank@reviewjournal.com. Follow him at @JeffBurbank2 on Twitter.