The unnamed reporter who typed up what was probably a faxed news release from state police in Butler’s Troop D on Feb. 23, 1985, likely figured the cute little dark-haired, doe-eyed girl peering impishly from a school picture on Page 1 would have been found by the time the Butler Eagle landed on thousands of stoops the following afternoon.

But 38 years later and in almost every year since then, the public is still asked by Troop D investigators to share any information they might have on the strange disappearance of Cherrie Mahan, then age 8.

Cherrie got off the school bus at the end of her long driveway on Cornplanter Road with four other children at about 4:15 p.m. Feb. 22, 1985, and vanished.

The initial Eagle article the next day said police were searching for a blue van with a skiing scene painted on the side that other students on the bus had seen behind the bus.

Her parents, Janice and Leroy McKinney, were home when she disembarked from the bus, but decided to allow Cherrie to walk up the driveway since it was a nice day.

When she did not arrive at the home, Leroy, now deceased, went to look for her.

He called police at about 5:20 p.m. when he was unable to locate her.

Amid newspaper articles about contract negotiations at Friedman’s grocery store and a fatal tavern explosion in Sharpsville, Mercer County, readers learned that Cherrie was a third-grade student at the former Winfield Elementary School in the South Butler County School District, now the Knoch School District.

No doubt using information from state police, the writer described Cherrie as 4-foot, 2-inches tall and weighing 68 pounds, with hazel eyes and brown hair.

Articles over the years have detailed potential leads and avenues used by state police to find Cherrie, as well as quotes from her grieving grandmother, the late Shirley Mahan, and mother Janice McKinney.

A Nov. 5, 1998, article that saddened everyone who remembered Cherrie’s disappearance reported that Cherrie was legally declared dead by county Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas Doerr.

Doerr fixed the missing girl’s date of death as Feb. 22, 1992, as individuals must be missing for seven years to be declared dead.

Janice McKinney was understandably emotional over the proceedings, which were carried out to allow the family to donate $58,000 to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the little girl’s name.

The money was to be used as a reward for anyone with information that would help find Cherrie. Obviously, the money had gone unused.

“(I’m) sorry to see you here, ma’am,” Doerr said to Janice McKinney as she left his courtroom.

“If this money finds one child, it’s worth it,” McKinney said after the painful proceedings.

A 1990 article on Page 1 marking the fifth anniversary of Cherrie’s disappearance reported the FBI Behavioral Science Academy reviewed the case and came up with a personality profile of the abductor.

The FBI deduced that the abductor was someone who knew Cherrie and her movements.

An article on July 26, 1995, included a computer-generated image that aged Cherrie 10 years, which was done to give the public a current picture of the missing girl.

The image, which represented new technology at the time, was sent to 57 million addresses on “Have You Seen Me?” flyers, but to no avail.

An article on Feb. 22, 2005, that marked the 20th anniversary of Cherrie’s abduction illustrated her family’s continued heartbreak at not knowing what happened to the little girl.

“I don't know that I will ever accept it,” Janice McKinney said in 2005 of Cherrie's abduction. “It's just that the good Lord gave me enough faith to know that he's protecting her and … that someday I will know (what happened to her). It may not be until I'm dead and gone, but, I don't know, I can't explain it. I just know she's OK.”

Cherrie’s friends and family gathered on Feb. 22, 2015 — the 30th anniversary of her disappearance — at Saxonburg Memorial Presbyterian Church, according to a Feb. 23 report in the Eagle.

The event lasted several hours as those who knew and loved Cherrie, as well as those who prayed for her return or identification, spent several hours in prayer and fellowship.

Last year, on Feb. 22, 2022, an Eagle reporter attended a vigil McKinney planned at the scene of her daughter’s disappearance at 1136 Cornplanter Road.

McKinney hoped whoever took Cherrie might use the unique date to return her or divulge critical information.

“It was something there that the Lord laid upon my heart that I needed to step it up,” McKinney said in last year’s Eagle article. “I just believe that if everybody knows, if they talk about it, somebody is going to give an answer. Because somebody knows. I don't know who that somebody is; I just need to know.”

An Eagle reporter attended a similar vigil on Wednesday night, Feb. 22, at Cherrie’s former Cornplanter Road address.