For the past seven years, the definitive website devoted to the Highway of Tears has been run by a single person.
Tony Romeyn has been the volunteer host of highwayoftears.ca since he launched it in 2007. He was inspired to do so by unsolved cases like Nicole Hoar and Ramona Wilson then finally moved to act by the Prince Rupert case of Tamara Chipman, who disappeared in sinister circumstances on Sept. 21, 2005.
During the anniversary of Chipman's last confirmed sighting, Romeyn has handed the website over to Carrier Sekani Family Services for ongoing administration.
"I do have significant health problems, but I didn't want to kill the website," Romeyn said. After discussions with police, other social advocates, and staff at Wikipedia, he approached CSFS to test their interest. They were the host agency for the on-again/off-again (depending on provincial government funding) Highway Of Tears Co-ordinator, and involved in many of the lives of the victims and their families.
"When I first took over the Highway of Tears position a little more than a year ago, this website is the one that came up most prominently. It was a tool I relied on, it was so comprehensive," said Wendy Kellas, youth services manager for CSFS. " When Tony came to us, there was no way we could turn it down. The fact this huge online resource was built and maintained by one volunteer is amazing."
The website was a collection of photos, stories, media reports, police statements and conversations pertaining to the many cases of murdered or missing women along the Highway 16 corridor between the Cariboo and the west coast. Romeyn made it his policy to censor the articles and submissions as little as possible.
He also maintained a companion website, iammissing.ca, dedicated to the broader scope of missing people in all locations of Canada.
Romeyn is still looking for someone to come forward to take over the iammissing.ca website, a workload he estimated at about half an hour per day. Anyone wishing to step into this role can contact him via the contact feature on that website.
