By GRAHAM JAEHNIG

Houghton Daily Mining Gazette

HANCOCK — No progress has been made in the search for a missing Hancock Township man who disappeared a month and a half ago.

Kenneth “Ryan” Clark, 33, has been missing since the early morning hours of Jan. 13, when he left his home near Lakeview Drive in Hancock. He has not been seen since. He did not tell anyone he was leaving which, family members said, is unusual for him.

“Ya know what? It’s a mystery,” Marilyn Clark, Ryan’s mother said. “Nobody can understand what has happened. We’ve had two teams of search dogs here, so we know he’s not in a snow bank someplace. We’ve had drones over the lake, so we don’t feel he’s in the lake. The lake was frozen over at the time. We’re thinking now he’s in a car someplace. We just don’t know.”

Houghton County Sheriff’s Detective John Giachino is the lead investigator in the case, Marilyn said, and the family will not give up hope.

“It is kind of interesting, even in my own life,” Marilyn said. “I grew up in Chassell, and there was a family that I went to school with — the boy was a little bit older than me. He disappeared for four years and came back. And so, in my own life I’ve had situations with other families who have had this.”

Marilyn said she and her family cannot speculate on what might have happened to Ryan.

“I can’t speculate. It drives you crazy if you try to figure out what the scenario is,” Marilyn said. “We feel like he just went out for a walk to clear his head and something happened. I don’t know what. That’s what we think, but that’s as far as we can get.”

The family is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the safe return of Ryan, Marilyn said.

“The family is going to be offering a reward for the safe return of Ryan,” she said. “We have had friends all over the country and the world asking us what people can do, so we set up a crowdfunding account. You can go on Facebook and search for a Facebook page called Search for Ryan Clark, and there’s a piece there where people can donate.”

Donating is not really necessary, Marilyn said. The main reason the account was established was because there are so many friends of the family who live out of the area who wanted to know what, if anything they can do, she said.

The family is offering the reward to a person or persons who provide information verified by police leading to the discovery of the whereabouts or safe return of Ryan before Dec. 31.

“The reward is this high because we’re thinking at this point that he may not be in the area,” Marilyn said, “and so if you have friends and/or family that you can share the Facebook page with, that would be awesome. That would be perfect.”

Marilyn said the Facebook page is an integral part of the search for Ryan, who has been missing since Jan. 13.