How The Amber Alert Was Started........

Last night when I wrote about Amber Hagerman I didn't know why or how the Amber Alerts got started. This morning I read in the paper how it got started and I just wanted to write about that in case someone else wants to know.

Diana R. Simone who is a massage therapist had the idea. Since then 794 children have been rescued. Simone is now 70. Simone and a client Rev. Tom Stoker were talking about what had just happened and crying about it that day on the massage table.

In that day the cell phones were brick-size and she wondered aloud if an alert could be sounded for missing children. The Reverend ask her how about the radio? Simone called KDMX/102 and the Amber Alert was born.

Two decades later, it's working the way she had imagined it. The new cellphone Amber Alerts have rescued 21 children.

At that time , seven radio stations from competing chains did the hard work to set up a local broadcast alert system, similar for thunderstorms.

Until 2002 , the radio managers always credited a "listener idea" and Simone remained anonymous. It was Stoker who got a copy of her follow up letter and KDMX officials confirmed it.

In 2002 , she said she had never told anyone it was her idea because it seemed to be working.

The incidence of child abductions by strangers has declined since 1996,the alerts also discourage family abductions.

With the alerts it puts a million eyes on the lookout in a matter of minutes.

Diane Simone is very modest about it. She says and I quote, "The heroes are the police looking for these children , and the firefighters, and the people working in the battered women's shelters. I only did something, just one thing, one time."

Look how many times it has worked. 794 times.

I only wish it could have been thought off before Amber, before  a lot of kids lost their lifes.