At around 4:00 in the afternoon on Thursday, July 15, 1976, a school bus driver named Frank Edward Ray was driving 26 students of Dairyland Elementary School home from a summer class trip to the Chowchilla Fairgrounds swimming pool when a van blocked the road ahead of the bus. What happened next would haunt the children and Ed for decades to come. This is the story of the Chowchilla School Bus Kidnapping.

Sources:

• Chowchilla Kidnapping: How 26 Children Were Buried Alive In 1976 (allthatsinteresting.com)
• 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping - Wikipedia
• Ed Ray, Bus Driver Who Helped Save Kidnapped Children, Dies at 91 - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
• 1976 Bus Kidnapping | Chowchilla, CA (cityofchowchilla.org)
• FROM THE ARCHIVE: ABC7 News Special Report of Chowchilla bus kidnapping in July 1976 - ABC7 San Francisco
• Remembering the Chowchilla kidnapping: A never-before-seen interview with a survivor - CBS News