Boy, 8, Is Found After His Missed Bus Stop Adventure

Cody Gibbs was too small to see over the bigger kids on the school bus, too embarrassed to tell the driver he missed his stop and too afraid to ask for help when he got off the bus six miles away.

“I kept trying to tell myself he went home with a little friend,” the 8-year-old’s mother, Rita Gibbs, said Tuesday. “I had to finally face the fact that he was out there.”

Cody was found shortly before midnight Monday about 10 miles northeast of his Pryor home, a few miles from where his journey began and about 200 yards from where a Mayes County search team that included eight agencies had set up a command post.

His adventure started on the way home from school. He said he wasn’t sitting in his usual spot on the bus and taller kids obstructed his view, so he didn’t recognize his stop. So he got off at the next stop--six miles farther east--and tried to find his way back.

Cody said he spoke to no one and stopped walking only to secure the hood of his coat as temperatures plunged to the 40s at nightfall, and to rest.

“He told me he was scared to go to the houses to knock, that somebody might grab him and try to kidnap him,” Gibbs said. “But that’s a good fear to have.”

The search team was organized and the command post moved northeast of town after a “door-to-door, barn-to-barn, cellar-to-cellar” search, said Fire Chief David Harrison.

Police spotted him 200 yards from the command post, a few miles from where he got off the bus eight hours earlier.

“He didn’t say much at first because he was so cold,” said Gibbs, who monitored the search from the command post. “I asked if he was cold and he said, ‘Yes.’ Then I asked if was hungry and his eyes lit up.

“As soon as he said he was hungry, there was somebody standing there with a pizza for him.”