Group enters missing Sumter resident Barbara Nave's car in show to keep hope alive

Members of the Finding Barbara Nave Group still haven't given up hope of finding their missing friend.

Four members of the group, Maria Rodgers, Phyllis Dickason, Evelyn Cloy and Kathleen Kreklau, fixed up the Geo Tracker she left behind, which is decked out in Kansas City Chiefs decals, and entered it in a car show at the Iris Festival this past weekend to help raise awareness of the missing woman and try to find any leads they could. The car ended up winning a "ladies' choice" trophy at the car show.

Barbara Nave was last seen on Feb. 4, 2017, by her family when she left her son, Paul Nave's, house in Savannah, Georgia, after celebrating her 80th birthday. Paul Nave last heard from her on Feb. 9, which was the same day she sent an email to a friend and talked to a contractor, according to Sumter County Sheriff's Office.

Dickason was actually close to purchasing the car from Barbara Nave.

"We were close to negotiation, and then she went missing, and her son gave me the car," Dickason said. "And so I have been, over a year, restoring the car in her honor, and we're using it as a tool to help make awareness for a missing person, and that's what we're using it for more than anything."

Dickason is still puzzled as to what may have happened to their friend.

"We really don't know what happened to her," she said. "It's like the aliens came and just plucked her out of the sky. There's a lot of theories of what's happened to her, but we don't know. But we're not giving up hope."

Kreklau stressed the importance of doing things like this to keep Barbara Nave's story in the public eye.

"We just wanted to make sure we keep the case out there in the public," she said. "We don't want her to become a footnote."

Kreklau thinks the group did a good job with restoring the car, a car that meant a lot to Barbara Nave.

"I think Barbara would be very proud because she just loved her little car," she said. "You know, you'd just see her going down the road, and she was totally concentrated, (looking) forward, and her hair was just flying everywhere, (her) dogs were in the back. You know, she was just in her own element when she was in her little Tracker."

Anyone who has any information regarding the whereabouts of Barbara Nave is urged to call Sumter County Sheriff's Office at (803) 436-2000.