Lost Boy

I started my career in 1978, working for the Casper, WY, Police Department. I hadn’t been there long when I took a phone call from a frantic mother saying that her 6 year old son had not come home from school. They lived only 3 blocks from the school, and, in those days, it was much safer for a child to walk that distance. She had scoured the neighborhood looking everywhere for him. The officers quickly responded to the area, with a description of the lad. Every available officer was searching the entire section of town, diligently looking for the small boy.

Trying to think of things that might help, I wondered if maybe his teacher might have any ideas. I called the school and asked her if there were any children that the boy played with more than others. She gave me the name of a boy in his class with whom he was particularly close and his moms name.

After a little searching, I was able to find the phone number for this boys family and called the number. I asked the woman if our lost boy would happen to be there with her son. She said, yes, he is.

I sent the nearest officer to the house to retrieve our missing boy and was able to call his mom and tell her we had located him.

It wasn’t much, but to her it was everything. This call always stayed with me, being a mother of 3 myself. It carried me through the next 20 years of my career. After each call that didn’t have the best results, I always remembered this one, that did.