03/30/2026
This Saturday DCSAR was privileged to be able to pre-stage, train, and interact with the community during the Eggstravaganza Put on by Daviess County Parks and Recreation. Our secretary Sarah Thomas asked me to share a bit about the game we had going, as I am particularly fond of it:) Though it was not quite as outwardly enticing as the petting zoo, pony rides, or inflatables (I kept wanting to go pet the llama) we had 18 groups of people stop to play the “Kim’s” game we had set up. Many other folk came and did a walk through of our command vehicle and talked about the team, our capabilities, how to join, and many other things but for those that tried it the “Kim’s” game was a big hit. It’s a memory game named for its appearance in the book “Kim” by Rudyard Kipling. If you’re interest it is talked about in chapter nine of that book(you can see some pictures below). This game is frequently used to train military personnel, law enforcement, Search and Rescue, Boy Scouts, and anyone wanting to stimulate their mind and improve memory. Those in sniper training use it to take a quick mental picture and then move back to cover, they’ll then review the picture in their mind to notice things that they didn’t initially perceive. For those of you that are Sherlock Holmes fans think of how he uses his “mind palace” and recalls mental pictures.
Eye witness testimony is notoriously unreliable. The mind filters so much out and tends to fill gaps with imagination in a way that causes 10 people to give 10 different answers when asked about an event. We all look and see so much but often the problem is in perception and being able to recall just the facts without unintentional embellishment. This is really big to us in SAR for mantracking, understanding K9 indication/scent theory, investigative, or almost anything.
For Saturday’s game I laid down a wool blanket, placed 30 random items on it and cover it all with another wool blanket. I would give each team or individual a clipboard with a piece of paper and tell them they would have 30seconds to look and take a mental picture. I would then cover it back up and they could choose to just list as many items as they could remember or try to draw them as they lay in order like a map of what they saw and label them.
Individuals would be categorized by age group or all groups would compete together for who has the best collective memory.
We ended up having 18 different groups enter their attempts and no individual entries. They ranged from 5 things remembered to 19. We were very liberal with even being close to what it was or possibly looked like:) I think most folk were surprised with how little they remembered or especially the things they were sure were there but weren’t. Only a few groups came when it was slow enough to look after they guessed.
The three winning groups have been contacted and for this even team members are donating age appropriate outdoor prizes for each person in those groups. So it may be a week or so before you guys get those in the mail:)
The winners were:
Whitsett/ Higdon with 19
Wetherbee with the next highest of 16
Grant with 14 (one of only 2 groups that tried to correctly place the items and the 5 Grant kids did amazing with just a little guidance from mom and dad).
It was an amazing event and good to talk to all of you!
Remember if someone goes missing call 911. The sooner we can get there the better the outcome. DCSAR is all volunteer and there is no charge for the team coming out. We just want you all to be found safe so don’t hesitate, we are delighted when dispatch calls us back that the subject is found quickly and we just turn around and go home. We don’t do this for pay but to serve our community and fellow man as a whole.
Casey Clark DCSAR Coordinator/mantracker
