For years, drivers coming south into Battle Creek via M-37/Bedford Road passed by the same hand-painted message scrawled across an old roadside sign: “Michael Loves Shannon.”
Simple as it was, the graffiti became something of a local landmark – a piece of roadside folklore that sparked curiosity, conversation and more than a few theories. When the weathered sign was recently replaced by a commercial billboard, many in the community noticed its disappearance immediately – including Shannon Womack, the Shannon of “Michael Loves Shannon.”
“I was very surprised that the billboard was left alone for as long as it was,” Womack said. “When the new ad went up, it hurt to see, but I had to be thankful for the time we had.”
KCC’s Marketing and Communications Department also noticed the change. Knowing the sign’s long history in the community, KCC’s designers did a professional graphic design update to the graffiti and secured the spot beginning in March, updating the space with a professional flourish.
The popularity of the message – which had been a mainstay of many people’s daily commute – was evidenced by a KCC Facebook post showing the before and after billboards posted that month that went “local viral,” collecting nearly 140,000 views in a number of days.
Michael Loves Shannon
Michael Gillespie and Shannon Womack first met in a driver’s education class at Gull Lake High School during the summer of 1978. They quickly became inseparable, and Womack said they were attached at the hip through Gillespie’s graduation in 1981. Womack was a 1982 graduate, and life pulled them in different directions that year.
Over the decades, however, they never fully forgot each other.
“Throughout the years we had always held each other in our hearts as our first true love,” Womack said.
In 2014, after years apart, the two unexpectedly reconnected during a difficult season in both their lives. Womack was preparing to move back to Battle Creek from upstate New York after the death of her mother, while Gillespie was also navigating major life changes.
During one of their conversations, they joked about a piece of graffiti they had seen on a nearby sign reading, “Rusty Loves Shannon.” Gillespie wondered aloud whether it was about her.
It wasn’t, Womack said, but the pair joked about changing the sign to read “Michael Loves Shannon.”
The joke soon became something more.
“A few days later I received a text from him with a picture of the newly painted billboard that said just that,” she said. “I couldn’t believe he did it.”
Armed with paint, an extension ladder and plenty of determination, Gillespie had climbed up beside the busy roadway in the middle of the day and created the now-famous declaration himself.
“It had to have taken a couple of hours,” Womack said. “But that was my Mike – not afraid to do it and just crazy enough to pull it off.”
A Community Story
Womack estimates the message remained visible for roughly a decade – from 2014 to just a year or two ago – quietly becoming part of the landscape and, unbeknownst to the couple, part of the community’s story as well.
“What is shocking to both of us is that the sign evidently had an impact on so many people,” Womack said. “We weren’t aware that we were ‘local famous’ at all.”
It was KCC’s Facebook post and its 100 comments – many of them asking who the Michael and Shannon in question were – that led to the reveal of their identities, as well as the answer to the question on many people’s minds: Does Michael still love Shannon?
Gillespie answered in a comment on the post: “I am the Michael and yes I still love Shannon. Always have and always will!”
It’s a sentiment shared by Womack, who noted that though the pair never married, they remain close friends today.
“I hope that message of love over the years made people feel happy and made them smile when they passed it,” she said. “We also hope that everyone is happy to know that we are indeed still in love and, I believe, will be until the day we die.”
This article first appeared in the June 2026 edition of BruIN magazine. To read the issue online, please visit kellogg.edu/bruinmagazine.
