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Thank you @ryan_labar , @mvaneijgen and @PointC!!
 
This probably isn't as elegant as the proposed solutions , but it came down to how to link the array to GSAP's shuffle utility.  Thanks again for the speedy and useful feedback. 
Love this platform!! 
 
Here's my solution: 
 

See the Pen 94e2c7952237f4236535cceabbc1a64a by evryali (@evryali) on CodePen