SIERRA VISTA -- Search and rescue teams from the Cochise County sheriff's office focused on the Fairbank area Thursday in their search for a missing 92-year-old Whetstone resident whose truck was found late Wednesday stuck in a wash.
John "Buck" Kueper was last seen Friday at Buddys Bar on Highway 82 in Whetstone, where he spent each afternoon seated at the bar sipping a Coors Light and shooting the breeze with friends. As evening approached, Kueper would climb into his Dodge pickup and drive the 100 feet to his home.
Friends and family described him as regular as clockwork and sharp as a tack. They became alarmed when they hadn't been able to contact him over the weekend, and called the sheriff's office Saturday. Others fanned out across southern Arizona, with bikers riding as far north as Tombstone looking for his pickup.
A man reported seeing the abandoned pickup Wednesday afternoon near Fairbank, and the sheriff's search and rescue team was out late into the night trying to find him, said Carol Capas, a sheriff's spokeswoman. The truck was towed to the sheriff's impound lot.
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They returned to the area Thursday morning and resumed the search, she said.
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