Lost 3-year-old has 80 searching

— Almost 80 law-enforcement officers and volunteers were searching Sunday for a 3-year-old boy who was reported missing Saturday at a Boy Scout camp in Fulton County, police said.

Caleb Linn of Springdale was reported missing about 1:20 p.m. Saturday, after he became separated from a group working on a cleanup project at the 900-acre Kia Kima Scout Reservation, Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler said.

Caleb was among a group of 11 children and one adult who were working on the project at a bridge over the South Fork of the Spring River, about a half-mile from the main camp area, on Saturday, Sadler said.

Five of the youths left the project to return to the camp. Caleb went after them, with the adult’s permission, about 11:30 a.m., but never arrived at the camp, Sadler said.

When the adult “returned to the camp expecting to find six of the 11 [children], that’s when she realized that Caleb was missing,” Sadler said.

According to a news release from the Fulton County sheriff’s office, the state police and Baxter County sheriff’s office searched the area using helicopters, and the state Department of Correction sent a dog team to help with the effort. The Fulton County and Sharp County sheriff’s offices and area fire departments were also participating in the search, the release says.

The boy was described as standing 3 feet 6 inches tall and weighing 41 pounds. His brown hair is short on the sides and “longer toward the middle,” according to a state police news release. He was last seen wearing an orange baseball jersey-style shirt with green long sleeves, a short-sleeve orange T-shirt, bluejeans and black tennis shoes.

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 03/26/2012

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