Ed Ray, Bus Driver Who Helped Save Kidnapped Children, Dies at 91 Ed Ray, the California school bus driver who was hailed as a hero in 1976 for leading 26 children to safety after they were kidnapped and buried below ground in a truck trailer, died on Thursday at a nursing home in Chowchilla, Calif. He was 91. United Press International Ed Ray, a school bus driver, was honored as a hero for helping save a group of children in 1976. His death was confirmed by his granddaughter Susan Ray. The mass kidnapping prompted headlines and television coverage across the country. It was late in the afternoon on July 15, 1976, when three armed men stopped Mr. Ray's bus on a dusty road outside of Chowchilla, a farm town in central California, and forced him and his passengers - 19 girls and 7 boys, ages 5 to 14 - into two vans. Within an hour after the children had failed to come home from a summer-school excursion, an all-out search was under way. The school bus was found off the road and camouflaged with foliage. By then, the kidnappers and their victims were well on their way toward Livermore, Calif., about 100 miles to the northwest. After midnight on July 16, at a rock quarry off a secluded road west of Livermore, Mr. Ray and the children were pushed into the partly buried trailer, that of a moving van. The kidnappers, who intended to demand $5 million in ransom, had planned their crime carefully. The van's roof - at some points more than four feet below ground level - was equipped with battery-powered fans that sucked in fresh air. Toilet paper, mattresses, blankets, food and water were inside. Mr. Ray struggled to lift the children's spirits. "There was a lot of crying and begging for mama," he told reporters. "They kept hollering and saying, "Why did they do this to us?" I'd like to know, too. For nearly 16 hours, they huddled together. Then, after hearing no noise outside, Mr. Ray and several of the bigger children began piling mattresses to see if they could reach a small trapdoor in the roof. They did, and after digging through a mound of dirt, one of them managed to squeeze out and find a night watchman at the quarry. After the police arrived, Mr. Ray led the children out of the site. Later, under hypnosis, he was able to remember the license plate of one of the kidnappers" vans. Several days later, James Schoenfeld, his brother, Richard, and Frederick Woods were arrested. They pleaded guilty to 27 counts of kidnapping and were sentenced to life in prison. Five weeks after the kidnapping, thousands lined the main street in Chowchilla to celebrate Ed Ray and Children's Day. By then, at the convention of the California School Employees Association in Sacramento, Gov. Jerry Brown had presented Mr. Ray the association's citation for outstanding community service, "particularly to 26 precious Chowchilla schoolchildren." Many more awards would come. Frank Edward Ray - known as Ed - was born in Le Grand, Calif., on Feb. 26, 1921, one of eight children of Frank and Marie Ray. He moved to Chowchilla with his family and graduated from Chowchilla High School in 1940. In the early 1950s, after growing corn and raising cows on a farm he had purchased, Mr. Ray became a bus driver for the local school district. He retired in 1988. Mr. Ray is survived by his wife, Odessa; a sister, Esther Danieli; two sons, Glen and Danny; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. "In his last days," The Merced Sun-Star reported on Friday, "Frank Edward Ray was visited by many of the schoolchildren he helped save in the Chowchilla school bus kidnapping 35 years before."