(Host) Volunteer search parties will be combing the woods around Hogback Mountain in Marlboro this weekend. They’re hoping for clues pointing to the whereabouts of a missing Brattleboro high school senior.
Marble "Ace" Arvidson hasn’t been seen since the Saturday before Tropical Storm Irene.
VPR’s Susan Keese has more.
(Keese) Marble Arvidson left his home in West Brattleboro on the afternoon of August 27. He jotted down the time, two-seventeen, on a note he left. It said he’d be back in half an hour.
But no one has reported seeing the six-foot-two, physically fit, 17-year-old since.
Arvidson’s aunt is Trish Kittredge, a sergeant major in the Massachusetts National Guard. She says Arvidson had a visitor just before his disappearance.
(Kittredge) "One roommate heard somebody come to the door and then saw Marble allow somebody in, and that it all looked friendly, and then he went back into his room and didn’t pay any more attention to it."
(Keese) Kittredge says no one actually saw the visitor, or knows whether Arvidson left alone or with someone.
But the people who knew him best don’t believe he meant to run away. They say he left his cigarettes and computer.
Julie Cunningham, who directs Families First, has been close to Arvidson since grade school, when he became involved with her agency.
(Cunningham) "Marble had just finished up the best year of his life. He finished last year, his junior year… with a B average… he had visited UVM and he had a plan, a plan for his future. He had a girlfriend, a circle of friends…"
(Keese) In the past two weeks, those friends have knocked on doors and searched areas where Arvidson loved to hike. They’ve put up posters showing Arvidson in the black shirt and pants he always wore.
Arvidson’s aunt, Trish Kitteredge, describes her nephew as a quick-witted but gentle person with shoulder length blonde hair.
She worries about time lost in the disarray of Tropical Storm Irene. It was Monday before it became clear he had disappeared and Brattleboro police became involved.
Kittredge is taking time off from her National Guard post to lead the search. She says it’s hard not to fear something terrible has happened. But she won’t stop searching.
For VPR News, I’m Susan Keese.