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Extensive Media Enterprises Missing Children’s Day isn’t an observance that screams “feel-good story.” But this week’s 28th annual ceremony in Tallahassee paired the necessary remembrance with considerably more hopeful news. It’s been more than four decades since FDLE launched the Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse, a first-of-its-kind effort in 1983, and it continues producing brag-board-worthy stats. The latest: In 2025, MEPIC issued 81 Missing Child Alerts and seven AMBER Alerts. As of Monday, all seven AMBER Alerts and 77 Missing Child Alerts had ended with the safe recovery of the missing children. But MEPIC doesn’t work alone — it relies on juvenile justice workers, local police, federal law enforcement, some very good dogs and even everyday people to ensure reports and tips become reunification trips — and this year, FDLE handed out awards to more than 20 people and a trio of K-9s without whom Monday would have had substantially more gloom. At the top of the list with the Commissioner’s Award was Katherine Gomez, whose work touched three major operations that recovered 60 children in the Tampa Bay region, 122 missing children across several states and 43 vulnerable youths across three states. Canh Bui, Crystal Patterson, Anthony Corso, Madeline Lopez, Michaela Darty and Kailee Healey shared the John and Revé Walsh Award for their work on Operation Cupid’s Arrow, a multiagency effort to locate critically missing and endangered children. Other honorees did the painstaking investigative work that doesn’t fit neatly into a paragraph block on an awards ceremony itinerary. In St. Petersburg, Detective Rachel Hunter found a 14-year-old in immediate danger, then spent months mapping the network of offenders who had preyed on the child; FDLE’s Douglas Patterson and Green Cove Springs Police Detective Cora Milliken pursued a child-exploitation investigation from Florida to Rhode Island, securing 15 felony charges and an arrest; and federal officers Alvin L. Vincent and William Talaera were recognized for Operation LOCATE, which FDLE says located 408 unaccompanied children who had been placed with sponsors. 
Florida has some heroes working to ensure this poster gets smaller. Image via FDLE. FDLE spared us from asking the J-school 101 question and named the K-9 honorees — Layla, Hank and Ziva — and their humans, too. Layla and Ritchie Kaplan found hidden digital devices that proved crucial to a Tampa child-exploitation investigation; Hank and Coleman “Ryan” O’Gara followed a one-mile trail through streets, sugar sand and woods to find a missing teen unharmed; and Ziva and Tony Sun located two endangered juveniles. Then there were two Duval County Public Schools employees whose ordinary workdays took an extraordinary turn. School bus operator Ann Tatum, certified only five months earlier, was transporting 34 kindergartners and two chaperones to the Jacksonville Zoo when a semi rear-ended her bus. She kept her cool, phoned dispatch, and maintained control of the situation until firefighters arrived to take the baton, earning her School Bus Operator of the Year honors. The same event saw teacher Franz Lerch act without hesitation to get the youngsters to safety — he even aided a student trapped by a seat belt while comforting the students, coordinating with first responders and keeping parents in the loop. The parent of the entangled kindergartner later showed up at a Duval School Board meeting to call him a “hero” on the record, a clear precursor to receiving the Citizen of the Year award. The story behind another award began with someone whose name does not appear on the list. A citizen recognized a vehicle associated with an active Georgia AMBER Alert and provided authorities with real-time updates. The call set in motion a pursuit involving Law Enforcement Task Force/Team of the Year Award winners Richard K. Norris and Adrian Myers of FHP and Liberty County deputies William Buckhalt, Robert Livingston and Wesley Tharpe — a chase that ultimately ended with the infant safely returned to family. But the unknown tipster’s act makes it clear that heroism doesn’t require leading multistate operations, being on the human end of a bloodhound's leash, or piloting 10 tons of steel with three dozen hyperactive distractions in the rearview. It can be rather ordinary: noticing an alert, recognizing the vehicle and making the call. More information on Florida’s AMBER & Missing Child Alerts, as well as the Purple Alert, Silver Alert and the newly created Spectrum Alert can be found here. ___ Coming up, the usual assortment of news, intel, and observations from the week that was in Florida's capital city by Peter Schorsch, Drew Wilson, Drew Dixon, Liam Fineout and the staff of Florida Politics. But first, the "Takeaway 5" — the Top 5 stories from the week that was: |
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