Published: October 21, 2009 01:41 pm      

MISSING: Family searching for runaway girl

WHITLEY CITY — The parents of a teen who went missing this weekend are desperate seeking any information leading them to their daughter.

Paige Marie Bryant, 16, was last seen at approximately 10 p.m. Friday night when her mother, Mary Hollars, went into her bedroom to say goodnight. When Hollars awoke at about 5 a.m. Saturday morning, the first thing she noticed was that the front door was cracked open.

“I knew I had closed it,” Hollars told The Record yesterday. “Then I checked her bedroom and Paige was gone.”

Along with Paige, a garbage bag of clothes was also missing from the bedroom. Hollars said her daughter had told her that she was bagging the clothes up to be donated because she couldn’t wear them anymore.

“I didn’t think anything of it at the time,” Hollars said.

Hollars suspects her daughter ran away because she got in trouble with the law the prior weekend. Although she hasn’t been in direct contact with her family, Paige did call a friend on Saturday morning and asked her to tell her parents that she was okay. Then she hung up.

The Hollars family contacted authorities. McCreary County Deputy Sheriff Joe Horne is leading the investigation into Bryant’s disappearance.

Paige Bryant is the 16-year-old daughter of Mary and Alan Hollars of Whitley City. She is a student at McCreary Academy. She is 5’6” and weighs 125 pounds with brownish-black hair and blue eyes.

Anyone with information regarding the case is urged to call the McCreary County Sheriff’s Office at 376-2322 or Mary Hollars at 376-9729.