It was Sept. 5, 1982, when 12-year-old John Gosch disappeared while delivering newspapers in West Des Moines, Iowa.
Two years later, a dairy in Des Moines printed his photo on milk cartons as part of a campaign to find missing children like Gosch, sparking a nationwide movement that lasted nearly 20 years.
Now a Gillette-based nonprofit is updating that same idea, but instead of milk cartons, they’re putting photos of missing Wyoming people on coffee sleeves.
Stacy Koester is the founder and president of WyoFind, who wants to make sure the missing are not forgotten.
“One of the things about people going missing is somebody knows something,” she said. “People do not just vanish.
"And that's our biggest goal, for somebody to say something. The smallest tip can literally break open a whole case.”
Nicki Hughes, one of the board members for WyoFind, said she’d heard about another organization putting stickers on coffee sleeves and thought it would be something theirs could get behind.
“We reached out to a couple local people in Gillette, and then it kind of just blew up,” she said.
Hughes said there are a dozen variations of the coffee sleeves, each with details about a missing person in Wyoming.
So far, 28 coffee shops around the state have agreed to put the sleeves on the coffee they serve up to customers.
“We started in Gillette, and then we jumped on Google and looked at coffee shops in towns all over Wyoming,” said Hughes. “Then we started going out to the ones that we know are frequently traveled to see if they would be interested in it.
"And then it just took off,” she added. “Lots of people donating coffee sleeves and stickers and all sorts of different things to help out.”
Turning Tragedy Into Action
There are now 73 missing persons cases reported in Wyoming that are more than a year old.
Koester said the oldest dates back to June 28, 1963, when Lynn Dianne Olson disappeared from her grandparents' GP Bar dude ranch in Sublette County.
“She was 16 when she went missing in the Green River Lakes area, and she would be 79 now,” said Koester.
But she said it was the case of Irene Gakwa, who disappeared without a trace in 2022, that was the catalyst to form WyoFind.
Gakwa, who moved to Gillette with her boyfriend in July 2021, was last seen on a video call with family on Feb. 24, 2022.
While her boyfriend has been convicted of financial crimes related to her disappearance, he has not been charged otherwise in her disappearance.
“We did not feel her case was getting the attention that it needed,” said Koester. “And her family lives in Idaho, and so we became their feet on the ground here in Gillette.”
Kennedy Wainaina is Gakwa’s brother and now a board member for WyoFind.
Wainaina said the WyoFind volunteers were a huge help when his sister went missing four years ago.
“We don't know much about Gillette,” he said. “So for us to have people that know the area, they know the police, they know the community, it helped a lot knowing who to talk to, where to search.
“Living 800 miles away, we would not have been able to do all this.”
That gratitude is what drives the WyoFind team, and what prompts them to come up with new ways to keep the missing of Wyoming at the forefront of people's minds in the Cowboy State.
‘We Cover All Of Wyoming’
The all-volunteer WyoFind board is a diverse bunch, made up of an electrical engineer, a warehouse technician, a groundskeeper, a retired criminal defense attorney, a small business owner, a pharmacist, and a retired police detective.
Koester said each brings their skills and hearts to the cause.
“Everybody brings a different value to the team,” said Koester. Retired Gillette police detective Dan Stroup "is our liaison with law enforcement, and he is also working with each of us to guide us with the ins and outs of how to approach law enforcement.”
Koester pointed out that each member of the WyoFind team is trained in different areas, including back country search and rescue, first aid, and water rescue, among other skills.
When they do searches, she said they reach out for volunteers.
“There is a spot on our website where people can sign up to be volunteers,” Koester said. “And we are looking for volunteers all over Wyoming, because we cover all of Wyoming.”
Funding The Cause
The board members put their money where their mouths are. None are paid and they all donate their time, although Koester said they fundraise and accept donations.
“We host a fundraiser once a year,” she said. “And we have been very blessed. In 2024, we were asked to lead a search over in Colorado to help locate Nick Salvagni, and our team, along with the people who joined us, were able to locate Nick's shoes, which then led to his remains.
"Nick’s father Brian is one of our biggest supporters, and is very generous.”
WyoFind recently assisted in the search for Shawn Hughes in Cody, and although he was found deceased, money was used to help fly Hughes’ sister from North Carolina to Wyoming.
Although the team volunteers their own time to print the coffee sleeve stickers and put them on the sleeves themselves, there are costs involved that the donations help pay for.
Each box of 1,000 sleeves costs roughly $78, and each coffee shop receives between 250 and 500 per month.
“We're working on getting a lot more made,” said Koester. “We actually have 11,000 stickers sitting on the counter ready for us to get them done.”
In addition to the photos of the missing person, the coffee sleeves include information about local authorities to contact for that particular case, said board member Ashley Means.
“Even if they didn't get the coffee themselves, maybe it's in an office somewhere and someone sees it, it's a conversation starter,” she said. “And maybe it can bring awareness to change legislation, so that there's a little bit stricter guidelines, you know, reporting has to happen in a certain amount of time, that kind of thing.”
Koester said the other goal with the distribution of the coffee sleeves is to make sure the families of the missing know that their person isn't forgotten.
“Our goal is actually to be in every city in Wyoming,” said Koester. “We're focusing on the family-owned coffee shops, noncorporate.”
WyoFind Wednesdays
One of those coffee shops is Buckin’ Brew in Mills.
Manager Abriel VanValkenburg said the café started something new this past week called “WyoFind Wednesday,” in which they will share missing person cases.
“The thought of someone you love simply vanishing without answers is heartbreaking and hard to even comprehend,” VanValkenburg told Cowboy State Daily. “Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world, and in today’s world almost everybody has a cup of coffee in their hand at some point during the day.
"Turning something people see every single morning into a conversation starter is powerful,” she added. "A face on a sleeve might spark a memory, a discussion, or help keep someone’s story alive instead of forgotten.”
VanValkenburg said her customers appreciate the coffee sleeve campaign.
“I have a woman who comes in every single morning asking for a different sleeve because she wants to read every story,” she said. “That alone shows how much awareness something this simple can create.”
'Wait A Minute ...'
The coffee sleeve campaign is just one outreach for the WyoFind team. Its website is a one-stop-shop for information on the missing people in Wyoming.
From ways to donate or volunteer, details on missing persons cases, a link to the organization’s Amazon wish list, and even an anonymous tip line that goes straight to law enforcement, the group’s goal is to help families of those missing and be a voice for the missing.
“Say somebody goes to that coffee shop and they get a drink, and that person that's on that sleeve, they recognize them and they say, ‘Wait a minute, I know some of this information, and it’s been so long maybe I can speak up now,’” said Matt Hughes.
“I'm going to reach out and say, ‘Hey, you should look into this,’ and it might break the case,” he said.
“Sometimes we think, ‘This could never happen to me,’ but it could happen to any of us,” said Wainaina. “It just takes a minute to maybe read that information (on the coffee sleeve).
"Maybe they’ll look at the face and they're like, ‘Oh, I remember this.’ And hopefully they call somebody. I'm proud that we're focusing on that.”
It’s important to not let these cold cases be forgotten, said VanValkenburg.
“If the least we can do is share their stories, say their names, and keep these cases in people’s minds, then maybe it leads to one more conversation, one more shared post, or one person finally coming forward with information,” she said. “These families deserve answers, and these people deserve to be remembered.”
Wendy Corr can be reached at wendy@cowboystatedaily.com.
