Benches To Highlight Missing People

Pictures of missing children and adults are usually associated with milk cartons and the walls of post offices.

Advertising businessman John Stone - the uncle of Valiree Jackson - says they can be more effective on bus benches.

On Friday, Stone discussed his plan to create a network of benches around Spokane County to feature photographs of missing people. The first is already inside the Rosauers on Sprague Avenue in the Spokane Valley.

Stone said the benches will cost between $600 and $1,000 to build and maintain. Initial fees will be absorbed by the Valiree Jackson Foundation, which Stone says is a nonprofit corporation based in his home state of Arizona. Thus far, Stone and his wife are the foundation’s only donors, though they’re seeking further support.

Stone’s bench plan is ambitious. Within the next year, he wants 1,000 around Washington and 50,000 across the United States.

Valiree Jackson was reported missing in October 1999. The following month she was found dead in a rural Stevens County grave.

Her father, Brad Jackson, was charged with murder and is scheduled to go on trial in September.

Stone has been to Spokane 14 times since Valiree Jackson’s disappearance, often taking on the role of “spokesman” for Valiree and his sister, Roseann Pleasant, who was the girl’s mother.

Pleasant disappeared in 1992, while working as a prostitute.

Stone said he wants to enlist local volunteers to change the benches each time someone goes missing in a community. After more companies agree to accept benches, Stone intends to expand the program to “rest stops, gas stations, airports and bus terminals.”

Rosauers President John Philipps said, “When there’s a need to call upon the community in a search, the benches will be right here in a public place.”