Today most of us learned via radio, or TV news report of the formation of a search posse of ATV operators.  Volunteers were sought to assist in a complete search of Skull Valley.  The search was set to begin at 2:00 PM.  This left very little time to respond to this urgent plea.  The only requiements, bring an ATV and a Helmet.

E-mail was sent to hundreds of people, and forwarded to hundreds of others.  Through the effort there were a miraculous two or three dozen ATV riders with their machines in tow show up at Exit 77 west of Grantsville.   The staging area was across the street from the old Timpee Springs Gas Station.

The instructions to the searchers: closely investigate everything of any consequence, no matter how slight the possibility.  We were given the description of the clothing the child was wearing as well as careful instructions to not touch anything that might be considered evidence or possible wrongdoing.  We were to mark all locations carefully and proceed to the nearest phone and notify the search organizers in the event of any discovery of anything that may be at all attached to the missing child.

The organizers were sent out by the Laura Foundation and provided riders, in groups of four, maps of the entire valley sectioned off in quadrants of about two miles each.  A leader was appointed in each group of four and the teams went off to their assigned locations.

Our group was assigned an area just west of Delle, where we followed every track in the sand to its end.  Every trail was searched and several hundred acres of sage was closely inspected.  There were old tumbled down out buildings closely inspected as well as anything else that might cover even so much as a tennis shoe.

Hours of searching discovered nothing but a punctured front tire that was quickly sealed by a tire plug and filled with a can of arisol tire inflator.

Reporting back to the staging area at 6:00 PM the teams each reported in and debriefed the search organizers.  Each team accounted for their actions and findings as well as to the safe return of each of the searchers.

At the conclusion of the search there was no suspicious activity beyond tracks in the sand, but at least each of us knew that we had done all that we could to help a terrified, yet becalmed family, in a desperate situation.

Other days may come with similar requests.  For those who can, the call to serve may provide yet another chance to beat the odds and find Elizabeth.