Ceremony marks end of search for missing Portland boy

CRATER LAKE, Ore. – The family of a missing Portland boy gathered at Crater Lake this weekend to recognize that the formal search for their son is over.

Kirston Becker, the mother of 8-year-old Sammy Boehlke, stressed that the small ceremony was not a memorial service.

The group gathered on Rim Drive, near the spot where Sammy was last seen Oct. 14, and included about a dozen family members and six Klamath Tribes ceremonial drummers.

“We don’t have resolution,” Becker said.

“Ambiguity is difficult, but the land here is very beautiful, but nature takes away. It looks like this time it took Sam.”

Friday marked the last day of regular ground patrols in the attempt to find the boy.

He had been missing for a week, and nearly 200 searchers from Oregon, Washington and California failed to find a trace of him.

Becker noted that a tree snag wrapped in pink surveyor’s tape was the last place Sammy was seen. Then she welcomed the guests: the Steiger Butte drum group of the Klamath Tribes and some tribal elders.

A tribal elder recited a tribal blessing and drummers performed several songs.

Then Ed Keady, a retired pastor from Klamath Falls, spoke about the difficulty of the week and the natural history of Crater Lake – its massive eruption, its apparent destruction and its eventual beauty.

Family members concluded the ceremony by recounting their love for Sammy. Becker recalled singing bedtime lullabies to her son. She led the group in singing his favorite, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”