Hutchinson — At first, Gene and Sue Yoder ignored the answering machine message left by a man whose booming voice said he was D.K., calling from Georgia. After all, they didn't know anyone in Georgia.
Then D.K. called again and said he'd found one of their balloons. This time, the Yoders listened.
Gage Switzer, the Yoders' 8-year-old grandson, was killed Dec. 15 when a tractor rolled over a tarp under which he was playing.
At his Dec. 20 funeral, the Hesston second-grader's schoolmates and young church friends released more than 100 balloons mostly primary colors, Gage's favorite over Pleasantview Cemetery in Darlow.
Sue Yoder watched as the bright, helium-filled pack drifted out of sight. Attached to each balloon was a laminated card with Gage's name, birth and death dates, and the Yoders' address.
Two days later, D.K. Freeman's son found a blue balloon and card in the smallest of clearings on the family's 5 acres of heavily wooded property in Greenville, Ga. 800 miles away.
"My boy brought it out of the woods," said D.K. Freeman, a 71-year-old retired railroad worker. "I just thought, 'Well, golly."'
Freeman is a former military man who has been around the world. He lives with his wife in a five-room converted train depot with an attached guest house made of an old caboose. But this, he said, is the most unusual thing he's ever experienced.
Freeman was curious about the balloon. The Oklahoma native called, in part, because he trusted people from this part of the country.
The Freemans and the Yoders finally made contact, and the phone call has created a link between strangers, a pen-pal friendship sparked by tragedy.
"We haven't even met them yet but the bond is there already," Sue Yoder said.
On Sunday, Barbara Freeman sealed a letter to the Yoders, tucking in a piece of the balloon and its attached gold ribbon. The families plan to keep in touch.
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