Editor's note: This story first published on the 35th anniversary of Johnny Gosch's disappearance.

Johnny Gosch was a boy many Iowans grew up with but never met.

It's been 35 years since the 12-year-old was kidnapped while delivering the Des Moines Sunday Register near his West Des Moines home.

In 1982, when an American child disappeared, authorities tended to respond cautiously, frustrating relatives. The Gosch case was one of several in that period that experts say transformed the pattern and improved the likelihood of children being returned.

Gosch's face was plastered on Anderson Erickson milk cartons — an early example of increased visibility of such abductions that also imprinted Gosch's story in the minds of a generation.

Johnny's mother, Noreen Gosch, says she's moved by better outcomes in child abductions credited to changes she helped advocate. But for her son, whose fate remains unknown by law enforcement, it feels too late.

"Was I ever like this before? I’ve had an eventful life, but I never had such a traumatic big thing happen in my life until Johnny was taken," Gosch said. "You have a choice. Are you going to rise up and do something or are you going to sit there and feel bad?”

The impact of technology, parental activism

The more-urgent approach has been credited in part to advances in technology — it's far easier today for social media or an Amber Alert to spread information about a kidnapping instantly — and to the activism of parents of children such as Gosch, Etan Patz in New York and Adam Walsh in Florida.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was established in 1984, two years after Gosch's kidnapping. Robert Lowery, vice president of the missing children division at the center, said that 66 percent of missing children were returned when Gosch was taken. Now, that figure is 98 to 99 percent, Lowery said.

“There was that misunderstanding that we should wait 24 hours to report our children,” Lowery said. “If children are harmed or killed, it happens in the first three to four hours.”

Gosch's story is one that's aired across the nation and covered the front pages of newspapers, disrupting the Des Moines-suburb of a little over 22,000 at the time.

The anguish and efforts of Gosch's parents

At the time of his kidnapping, Gosch was assumed to be a runaway child.

Delivering the newspaper was a typical rite of passage for children. It was unheard of at that time for a child to be kidnapped in West Des Moines, then a suburb of about 22,000 people.

The laws reflected that, as missing children were treated like missing adults. In Iowa, a law was in place that allowed law enforcement to wait 72 hours before declaring a child missing.

With these difficulties, the Gosches devoted themselves to the investigation and working to change laws so other families wouldn't have to endure the same challenges.

“My son was out there," Gosch said. "If he didn’t have his own family out there trying to find him, nobody would.”

John Gosch remembers the long drives after his son went missing. He and Noreen would travel 50 miles after work to share Johnny’s story at an awareness program. They would travel the state, selling candy bars and holding garage sales to try to pay the private investigator they hired after they were dissatisfied with law enforcement efforts.

“Basically, we were numb most of the time,” he said.

They lobbied locally and nationally to raise awareness about threats to children.

One success was the "Johnny Gosch bill," passed by the Iowa Legislature in 1984, which required law enforcement to immediately investigate missing-child cases where foul play was suspected. When another paperboy went missing in Des Moines a few weeks after the law took effect, the investigation of Eugene Martin's disappearance benefited, Noreen Gosch said. Martin has also never been found.

“The parents were all responsible for lobbying Congress and for saying more needed to be done to protect children from violence and abduction,” said Lowery of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "What happened with Johnny Gosch is what opened the doors for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children."

Noreen Gosch continues to speak before conference gatherings and other groups. Some of her statements over the decades have prompted controversy.

“You show me somebody who isn’t a little controversial when it comes to making positive changes, and I’ll show you someone who’s never done a damn thing in their life,” she said.

From Anderson Erickson to Amber Alerts

Mike Logsdon of West Des Moines always knew he wanted to be in law enforcement.

So when a news banner scrolled across his television saying volunteers were needed to search for a paperboy, he jumped into action.

Logsdon was 18 at that time, but Gosch's case has stuck with him since.

“It was a pretty uneventful community,” Logsdon said. “That event not only changed that city, but certainly the way of life people had in regards to their children.”

A year after Gosch went missing, Logsdon joined the Iowa State Patrol. He is now a lieutenant.

He rattled of some of ways abduction cases are now handled differently:

Agencies are more knowledgeable about abductions and share information with each other.

Instead of assuming children are runaways, law enforcement errs on the side of caution.

Advancements in technology let agencies share pictures and information faster than ever before.

Even with all the changes, the case in his hometown has stuck with Logsdon.

A change in the community

In his Ankeny real estate office, Ron Sampson flipped through the yellowed pages of his old reporting notebook this summer.

A page in it lists questions. One reads, “Will there be follow-ups after Johnny is found?”

Sampson was editor and columnist for the Ankeny Press-Citizen when Gosch was kidnapped, and he frequently wrote about the Gosches and their search for their son.

The effects of the Gosch and Martin changes were far-reaching he said.

Some of the changes were subtle and relatively inconsequential, such as difficulties with finding newspaper carriers.

Others were more dramatic, like parents keeping closer watch of their children and their whereabouts.

Sampson remembers delivering the paper alone in the dark morning hours when he was 8. Now, he said his parents would have been put on blast on “Dr. Phil.”

“Helicopter parents were invented then and they’re still here now, and thank God for John and Noreen for setting that standard,” Sampson said.

Jody Ewing, the founder of the website Iowa Cold Cases, said Gosch's disappearance had "a tremendous effect on families, not only in Iowa, but across the nation."

When Martin went missing, she said, it sank in that children weren't safe alone, whether it was during a paper route or even playing hide-and-seek after dark.

Before Johnny Gosch, adult supervision in Iowa seemed unnecessary, she said.

"The very mention of his name — Johnny Gosch — rings a bell with most people, and it's not a happy bell," Ewing said.

While children shouldn't be scared, Sampson said, the shift in culture following Gosch's case is beneficial for children. Lowery says the proof is in the numbers.

“For good or for bad, it put Des Doines and West Des Moines on the map for a while. It was such a remarkable case," Sampson said. "They were extraordinary times and extraordinary education for all of us."

Seeing his wagon 35 years later

The last thing John Gosch did with his son before he was abducted was go to the Iowa State Fair.

His son adored the fair and after seeing it advertised on a poster, he insisted his dad take him there.

"He loved the fair. He’d say, 'Lets go to the fair today,'" John Gosch said.

So, it was fitting that over the summer, his wagon was on display at the fair this year, his dad said.

"I never realized that 35 years later the wagon he pulled for his papers would be on display out there," John said.

John said he doesn't know whether his son is dead or alive. But he said he hopes for some sort of conclusion someday. Having the wagon on display this year is heartening, in a way. In 2007, West Des Moines police requested a sample of his DNA for safe keeping, in case Johnny is found after his father dies.

As cases get older, Lowery said, the tips on them dwindle. A variety of unconfirmed rumors about Gosch has surfaced over the years. Still, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is working to find Johnny, along with the West Des Moines Police Department, which says it is actively investigating.

The documentary "Who Took Johnny?" has been streaming on Netflix.

The awareness pleases both Noreen and John. They remember the volunteers and friends who came out to support them and continue to do so.

After the fair finished last month, Noreen got possession of Gosch's wagon for the first time in decades.

"it’s really nice to have something Johnny owned," Noreen said. "A real presence.”

As she goes around West Des Moines these days, Noreen sees Johnny's old friends with their own children.

"It’s two-fold, kind of like a double-edged sword, but I’m very pleased with what has been accomplished in all areas,” she said.

"You realize while life went on, the clock stopped for Johnny."