Boy Walks Away From Fears, Finds He’s Home Free

--A 6-year-old boy who hiked at least 18 miles and triggered a major search through the rugged wilderness of northeastern Oregon says he was determined to find his way home from a family picnic. Cody Sheehy overcame freezing temperatures, occasional rain and fears of wild animals during his 15-hour ordeal. “I was really scared,” Cody said. “I think coyotes were following me.” After wandering away from the picnic Sunday afternoon in woods near Troy, he hiked overland before finding a road. Cody, who was wearing a hooded coat and gloves, said he would walk for a time, then take a half-hour rest. At one point, he said, he climbed a tree to take a nap. “I knew I must be getting closer to my house every minute because I was going downhill,” he said. None of the searchers on horseback found the boy, who emerged the next morning in Wallowa, a community of 810 residents. He knocked at Beverly Hansen’s door and she called the sheriff’s office. The dispatcher didn’t believe Cody could have walked so far and Hansen had to repeat the story three times. Her son “seemed to keep his wits about him through all this,” said Marcie Sheehy, 37. “I was sort of losing faith by morning time,” she said. “I was weeping part of the time.” “My feet really, really hurt,” Cody said. “I can walk on them today but I couldn’t walk on them yesterday.” A doctor said Cody might be able to return to his first-grade class next week.

--A woman who helps support her family by selling worms to fishermen won’t be able to use her favorite hunting ground--the Roosevelt Cemetery--any more. The City Council in Roosevelt, Utah, has voted to bar Linda Gilbert, who bills herself as the “Worm Lady,” from using the cemetery as her major source of night crawlers. Gilbert, armed with a petition from fishermen and others supporting her business, appealed the decision. Among her supporters was a woman who said she had relatives buried in the cemetery and appreciated efforts to reduce the worm population. Gilbert told the council she earned up to $10,000 a year by supplying 72,000 worms a year to convenience stores catering to anglers. But the council said her use of an electric probe to shock worms to the surface violated an ordinance against disturbing graves.