As the crew of Apollo 15 headed for the moon in late July 1971, they found themselves competing for the nation’s attention with a 9-year-old boy missing on Casper Mountain in central Wyoming.
When Kevin Dye, with paddle in hand, went looking for a pingpong ball from a cabin in the Bear Trap Meadows region of Casper Mountain on July 18, 1971, he disappeared.
The hunt for the youngster who had a brain condition that limited his speaking ability and made him hyperactive became the focus of national news as search days mounted.
Hundreds of local residents joined the cause, along with law enforcement, National Guard troops, Boy Scouts, helicopters from F.E. Warren Air Force Base and dogs and handlers from around the country.
“A Frightened Boy Plays Hide-and-Seek With His Searchers in the Wilds,” The New York Times headline read July 25, 1971.
While the headline did not exactly mirror the reality on the ground in Casper, Natrona County Sheriff William Estes eventually decided to reach out to Boulder, Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Rescue Group for help. It arrived on day 10 of the search and found the boy the next day.
Rocky Mountain Rescue Group’s mission was led by Chuck Demarest, now 81. He remembers the rescue well.
“We went up with the intention of trying to help out and assuring that locals that a skilled, trained team would do the best we could,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “When we were involved in the search for Kevin Dye there wasn’t an organized group up there.”
The Boulder group’s success led to the immediate formation of the Casper Mountain Search and Rescue group. The team now based out of the Natrona County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Management Department originated from that beginning and has saved many lives over the past five decades.
Firsthand Insight
Casper Mountain resident Julie York has firsthand insights into the search for Kevin Dye.
Her dad, Ray Street, was a Natrona County deputy on the mountain. He led the initial search the night Kevin went missing. And in the following days, helped try and control the mountain scene as the anxious search for the boy, who was prone to epileptic seizures, wore on.
“There was probably 1,000 people up there searching and just keeping track of the people and keeping them out of trouble was part of what he dealt with,” York said. “They thought he was lost down in Elkhorn Canyon. And the Elkhorn Canyon area belonged to my grandparents … he knew that area like the back of his hand.”
But despite an initial search by about 100 searchers on Sunday night, Kevin stayed missing. Over the next several days efforts intensified. Sightings of blue objects became potential sightings of the boy who was wearing a navy-blue shirt and checkered pants when he went missing. But none were confirmed.
It didn’t help that a frightened Dye reportedly had been actively eluding the massive search effort.
Five search dogs and their civilian handlers were flown to Casper from McChord Air Force Base. They specialized in tracking scents lingering in the air.
Media started pouring in from all over the country.
Life and Time magazines sent staff. All three major TV networks sent crews to the region. The New York Times and other papers around the country picked up the story from United Press International and The Associated Press, which sent reporters to the mountain site.
Kevin Dye with his mom, then Carolyn Hood. (Courtesy Charlotte Dye) 
Left, Bang Bang, a Rhodesian Ridgeback search dog rests on the lap of hi owner, Helen Phillips of Northglenn, Colorado. Both were members of the Rocky Mountain search team. Right: Kevin Dye in his 20s. His sister, Charlotte said he lived a normal life and was a gentle man full of love. (Courtesy Charles Morrison Collection, Casper College Western History Center; Courtesy Charlotte Dye) 
Charlotte A. Dye, Phillip B. Dye Jr., and Kevin Dye pose at Phillip’s wedding in 1990. (Courtesy Charlotte Dye) Dye Family – The Dye Family poses for a photo a couple of years after Kevin’s search. They include from left Phillip Jr., Charlotte, Kevin, Carolyn, Phillip Sr. and Carolyn’s mother. (Courtesy Charlotte Dye)
Sister Remembers
Kevin’s sister Charlotte Dye, now the deputy general counsel for the U.S. Federal Labor Relations Authority based in Washington, D.C., said she was 5 years old at the time, but remembers the day her brother disappeared.
The family was meeting with other members of the local United Methodist Church as her parents and others prepared for a state church conference.
“We had a meal, we had a picnic and then the kids played games, so they had pingpong tables and things like that,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “The pingpong ball was hit off the table and he had to go run for it. And I don’t know if he got interested in something else and maybe couldn’t find it. (But) he just kept going and going and that was the last time people saw him.”
Despite news coverage at the time that labeled her brother as “retarded,” Dye said he had an average IQ, but his brain and been damaged and he had to undergo procedures to communicate.
Kevin suffered from epileptic seizures and had been on medication to help with his hyperactivity at the time of his disappearance, according to news interviews at the time with Anna Carolyn Dye, Kevin’s mother.
Casper’s Stan Icenogle Jr. said he was 19 or 20 at the time, and he knew Kevin’s parents as fellow members of a local acting troupe, the Red Dog Saloon Players.
“A bunch of us who were part of the Red Dog Saloon Players got together and were part of a search team on a portion of the mountain,” he said.
He recalls the group walking quadrants of land arm’s length apart from one another and calling out, “Kevin! Kevin!”
York said she and her older sister wanted to be part of the search, but her dad would not let her because of all the people that were on the mountain. She did get to ride with him in his police car as part of his efforts during the search.
York’s parents’ home became an unofficial stopping place for searchers, and a dog handler from St. Louis, Illinois, stayed at the family home and would go on to move to Casper and join the sheriff’s department.
Psychics And Santa
“I remember there were a lot of people that called from all over the country claiming to be psychic and others saying they had dreams about Kevin,” York said. “They had crazy suggestions of dressing up as Santa Claus and things like that. They ended up sending all the searchers home except a small crew.”
News accounts report that Sheriff Estes ordered searchers off the mountain at different times to allow for their scents to be removed so that dogs might have a better chance of picking up Kevin’s trail.
Despite air searches by teams from Warren Air Force Base and horseback searches, Kevin remained missing as the first week went on.
Some mountain residents reported potential sightings: A refrigerator at a cabin was reported open, garbage cans turned over. Speculation grew that Kevin was raiding places for food but just did not want to be caught.
Charlotte Dye said it was all false speculation.
“If you knew my brother at all, you would know no matter how hungry he got he would not eat out of a garbage bin,” she said. “He basically would eat peanut butter and syrup sandwiches around this time and refused to eat anything else.”
She also said he was shy and would not have approached strange homes or people who he did not know.
Demarest said when his team was brought in, Frontier Airlines flew them free on a flight from Denver to Casper. Once briefed by the sheriff’s office, he said they learned a 19-year-old man who “was at odds” with law enforcement had discovered Kevin’s pingpong paddle July 26, but he had refused to tell authorities where he found it. Law enforcement kicked him off the mountain.
Fake Press Conference
Demarest said his team needed to know where to search and that the boy was likely not in the campground area because it had been thoroughly searched. So, he convinced authorities to let him bring the 19-year-old back on the mountain for a “press conference.”
He needed to know where the teen found the paddle.
First, he had to convince the 20 or so national and local reporters to help them out. He initially received a lot of pushback and eventually convinced them to be part of an initial choreographed press conference where they asked questions in sequence that Demarest provided.
Demarest said the reporters were free to ask other questions after they asked the ones that he had drafted.
He said he put the teen on a pedestal and built him up in the introduction to the press, and then agreeable reporters asked questions such as: “Was the sun in your eyes?” “Did you have to scramble?” “Did you have to go a long way?”
The interview was taped and a psychologist helped the team discern what answers were truthful. The team developed two geographic areas as a result of the interview for the next day’s search.
“We thought there (were) two canyons that he could have gone into and that might not have been searched well or at all by locals,” Demarest said. “So, we prioritized our efforts the next morning the next morning.”
Kevin was discovered about 8:30 a.m. the next morning in the No. 1 search priority canyon designated by Demarest, near a small stream.
“He was lying in a meadow, unable to move essentially,” he said. “He probably would have died that night according to a doctor, (was) very dehydrated and of course hadn’t had anything to eat.”
The bogus press conference paid off.
Photos from a PowerPoint presentation by former Rocky Mountain Rescue Group leader Chuck Demarest show members of his team caring for Kevin Dye after finding him in 1971. (Courtesy Chuck Demarest) 
Members of the Boulder, Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Rescue Group arrive at the airport in Casper in 1971. (Courtesy Chuck Demarest) 
Riders pause at a sign in Beartrap Meadow during the hunt for Kevin Dye in 1971. (Courtesy Charles Morrison Collection, Casper College Western History Center) 
Horseback searchers go through a stand of pines during the search efforts for Kevin Dye. (Courtesy Charles Morrison Collection, Casper College Western History Center) 
Helicopters land in a meadow on Casper Mountain as part of the search for Kevin Dye in 1971. (Courtesy Charles Morrison Collection, Casper College Western History Center)
Death Of ‘The Gentle Giant’
“Well, to me it’s a very memorable search because we had to think outside of the box,”Demarest said. “Because we did think outside of the box we narrowed the search area, and very likely saved his life. So that’s incredibly rewarding to me personally.”
Demarest said he is currently writing a book about search and rescue and has included the Kevin Dye hunt in it.
Following his ordeal and because of the national publicity, Charlotte Dye said her parents were invited to bring Kevin to Chicago for expert testing related to his epilepsy and brain state.
Those tests proved he was not mentally challenged like the other students in the Casper school he attended. The Dyes then decided to put Kevin in a special school in Broomfield, Colorado, that had students with similar brain issues and where he would be trained in skills to help him live an independent life.
Kevin would be home on holidays, summers, and the family would visit him in Colorado. He flourished. His parents divorced in the late 1970s, and Charlotte Dye said her mom moved to Colorado from Casper to be near Kevin, and her dad eventually moved back to Texas where he and his ex-wife were from.
Following graduation, Kevin lived an independent life and had his own apartment.
Charlotte Dye characterized him as “really tall” and someone who enjoyed sports and competed as a runner in the Special Olympics.
“He loved people,” she said. “If you were a person that he came to know and respect, it was all love.”
In April 1998, Kevin somehow got a sore that led to a blood infection that spread through his body and claimed his life. His gravestone in Dalhart, Texas, has his name with the words, “The Gentle Giant.”
Charlotte Dye said her brother had the same interests as other kids and “he wasn’t somebody to feel sorry for or anything like that,” she said. “He lived the best possible life that he could have lived. … I’m proud to be his sister.”
Trained Search Team’s Birth
Kevin’s rescue spurred the local community to create a Casper Mountain Search and Rescue team.
A photo and article in the Aug. 22, 1971, Casper Star-Tribune shows Kevin Dye handing checks worth $25 that he received in the mail from people in New Jersey, Alabama and Colorado made out to “Stan Icenogle, funding officer for the Casper Mountain Rescue Group.”
“The training and organization of a skilled search and rescue team is well underway in Casper, and the funding is getting started, too — with a donation from Kevin Dye, a 9-year-old boy whose ordeal on Casper Mountain pointed out the need for such a group,” the newspaper reported.
The article stated the new group had 75 members with 14 on the rescue team who would be proficient in search techniques in two years and 30 on the search team that would train for six months. The group met weekly for classes and the group planned to travel to Boulder, Colorado, to participate in a large-scale exercises involving training on how to respond to plane crashes.
The story also reported they were bringing back a “truckload” of spare equipment donated by the Colorado Search and Rescue Board and Rocky Mountain Rescue, “the group that succeeded in finding Kevin.”
Search And Rescue Now
Natrona County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Kiera Hett said she could not find the definite date that search and rescue efforts in the county transferred to the Natrona County Emergency Management Department, which is under the sheriff’s office.
However, in August 2022, the county’s team and others successfully rescued a lost boy with a “cognitive disability” in a situation similar to Kevin’s.
The boy wandered from a Muddy Mountain campground, and after a nine-hour effort and a lot of coordination between ground teams and a helicopter, the boy was found and rescued.
“Today, we typically maintain about 50 members on the search and rescue team,” she said. Those numbers include 28 volunteers and seven staff on the Search and Rescue side, 10 in dive rescue, and four in communications.
Equipment today is much more sophisticated than 1971, and the county’s team has access to specialty dive equipment and radios that can communicate with aircraft, law enforcement and amateur operators. They also have UTVs or side-by-sides, Hagglunds tracked vehicles and snowshoes.
“We’re extremely proud of our team and the tremendous efforts they put forth into volunteering their time, both training and on missions, to help citizens and visitors in our county when its needed most,” she said.
In 2023, the latest statistics available the search and rescue team had seven missions. The dive group had one mission. The communication’s group recorded five missions. Hett said the volunteers totaled more than 2,800 hours of service that included training and emergency response in the county.
It’s the lasting legacy of a small 9-year-old boy who wandered off and survived 11 days in the wilderness alone until he could be rescued.
Contact Dale Killingbeck at dale@cowboystatedaily.com
The Casper Star-Tribune on July 27, 1971, carried a story about the pingpong paddle that Kevin Dye carried the day he was lost. (Courtesy Newspaper.com) 
All during the 11-day ordeal in July 1971, the story of Kevin Dye competed for front-page space with the Apollo 15 moon mission. (Courtesy Newspapers.com) 
The Casper Star Tribune on July 29, 1971, reported the rescue of Kevin Dye. (Courtesy Newspapers.com) 
The Casper Star-Tribune covered Kevin Dye’s release from the hospital after treatment following his 11-day ordeal. (Courtesy Newspapers.com)
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
