I can't sleep for some reason. It must be all the excitement. Tomorrow, well, actually today, is my meeting with the Nebraska State Patrol, too. I'd better be awake for that. Things are indeed happening in Nebraska.
To answer Bobbie, the idea came from my co-worker. She is from eastern Iowa and when we talked about the frustration of the Amber Alert system, she told me about the one in IA. It's been in place there for 20 years. I've never heard of anything similar in the country, other than one for the elderly called Mattie's Call. I believe that may be used in the Atlanta area.
While we can't have an Amber Alert for every missing person, I knew there had to be some compromise, an in-between. When my co-worker told me about the special system in IA, it was hard to stop thinking about it. I started to research it and get information from the media and LE in IA. I received permission from the board last week to go after it, and that is what I am doing.
After the board approved it, I asked Melissa if she wanted to help with it. Prior to this, she and her mom were going to go on a day trip to visit the LE up in the area north and west of here where she grew up. They were going to take the flyer about the LE training we are bringing to Omaha in October. It seemed like a good idea to have her take the alert proposal with her as well, so that's what she did. They are friends with many of the LE up there, so it was a way for them to kill 2 birds with one stone: visit the old stomping grounds and disseminate our info. They were all very receptive to Melissa and her mom. I know they did a fantastic job presenting it.
The ticker would tell all basic physical data. It would run in between newscasts and the photo and data would be shown on the next local news program.
The Omaha viewing area will be a beta test. Once established, I plan on taking it west and cover Nebraska. Of course, anyone can initiate it anywhere in the country.
I think it would be wise at this point to get it going here and have better written guidelines than the almost non-existent ones from IA.
We're still in the beginning stages of seeking the participants. They all just received the letter on Tuesday. Already though, we have one LE with a firm yes, and several in discussion. We have WOWT as the first official media participant. KPTM did the first news story and we are certain we will get their official yes on Wednesday. The WOWT story should air today. It was bumped last night because of a train accident.
Once we get the participants we need, I will call a meeting for all of us to create the guidelines. After that, it will be up to the media and LE how fast they can implement it. My personal target date is August 1st.
At this time, we need people to pray for this to go smoothly and for media and LE to easily say yes. I prayed as I dropped the batch of letters into the mailbox and all day Tuesday. So far, it looks like a YES!!!!
I'd better try to get some sleep. Thanks for the support!
