Students’ trip canceled

• By ASHLEY M. BAILEY
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: May 30, 2009 - Page: 1B

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Coney Durr, a fifth-grader at Brownfields Elementary School, had his Memorial Day weekend planned.

He along with 86 others, students and chaperones, expected to spend the weekend in Atlanta celebrating their graduation from the fifth grade. They were going to visit Six Flags over Georgia, tour the World of Coca-Cola plant and maybe go bowling.

Coney Durr’s mother, Korlyn Durr, said her son’s excitement turned to sorrow when that trip was abruptly canceled on May 20, the day before the group was supposed to leave.

Casey Rayborn Hicks, a Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman, said Maya Dyer, a parent of one of the students, proposed the trip and offered to act as treasurer.

Friday afternoon the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office arrested Maya Dyer, 27, and her mother Patricia Dyer, 48, on felony theft counts. The mother and daughter live together at 110 Gatebriar St.

Hicks said the two stole more than $19,000 from the students and chaperones. Each person had paid between $245 and $255 for the trip, she said.

The Sheriff’s Office launched their investigation into the missing money after receiving a call from two parents. The parents were upset over the missing money and canceled trip, Hicks said.

Hicks said Maya Dyer and Patricia Dyer had been collecting money from parents since February. Some parents sent the money to school with their children, where someone collected it and handed it over to one of the Dyers. The Dyers also collected money, in the form of cash and checks, directly from parents, Hicks said.

Maya Dyer told parents their money was going to an account she opened for the trip, but the Sheriff’s Office found no such account, Hicks said. Hicks added that some of the checks were deposited in the Dyers’ personal bank accounts, while other checks had been cashed.

Another student, Ellis Herring, was in tears when his mother told him there would be no trip because there was no money.

“He asked me, ‘But why? We paid our money,’ ” Valencia Shropshire recalled.

She said she was not sure how to explain to her 11-year-old son that the $250 they had paid for their trip was gone.

“It’s really sad that there are people like this in the world,” Shropshire said.