Finding Sammie provides example of NetPosse.com response plan

SHELBY, NC Friday, July 30 2010, 5:02 pm -- Letter to the editor at the Shelby Star

We’d like to thank everyone who worked with Stolen Horse International, also known as NetPosse.com, in the search for Sammie. This case could not have turned out any better and is a perfect example the work we’ve been do-ing since 1998 with our well defined alert response plan.

Once Marianne Miller came to us, we went to work and did what we do best — alert the community, news media, which can include TV/radio/newspapers/magazines, arrange news conferences, social networks, craigslist, etc.

We are so thankful to Misty Jacobs at The Shelby Star ,who responded immediately to our NetPosse.com alert and request to do a story on Sammie. The local news media is crucial in cases like Sammie’s and one of our immediate contacts. That story led to more support in the community, TV broadcast and assistance from PETA and more Shelby Star articles.

We work with thousands of horse owners each year and what you have read so far is just another day at the office. However, this case was more personal. I live in the Zion Community and I knew the Miller family and Sammie.

We were able to offer our personal assistance posting fliers in our community within minutes of the report. (Thank you, Zion community businesses and Zion Baptist Church members!) We were able to physically search the ground, roads and river with our family and friends. Not a day went by that we didn’t do something toward bringing Sammie home.

We are so thankful to Cathy Brissie, who found him, and to Lynn Allen, who assisted in getting him home. To see Sammie standing before me on Saturday was one more miracle that has happened because of our little nonprofit organization here. I rarely even meet our victims, so for me personally, it was an emotional reunion that hit close to home.

Again, thank you to The Shelby Star and everyone involved. Welcome home, Sammie!

Debi Metcalfe

President, Stolen Horse International, NetPosse.com

Resource: The Shelby Star News, http://www.shelbystar.com/articles/response-48590-example-sammie.html