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Pink balloons were everywhere in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. on Sunday, September 6, 2009. A parade was held to celebrate the discovery of Jaycee Lee Dugard alive. Jaycee Lee Dugard, kidnapped from the area in 1991, was found 18 years later alive in unicorporated Antioch. Her kidnappers Phillip and Nancy Garrido have been arrested and Jaycee has been reunited with her family. (Dan Honda/Staff)

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SOUTH LAKE TAHOE — Meghan Dorris remembers her classmate as a quiet girl she played games with on the playground.

Then one morning 18 years ago, Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped on her way to a school bus stop while Dorris made her way safely to the next bus stop on the line.

Both were blond fifth-grade girls headed to Meyers Elementary School by bus. Dorris' mother panicked after hearing an all-points bulletin at her workplace, fearing it was her daughter who had been snatched from the street.

It wasn't. But the sense that horrific crimes didn't happen in the area was gone.

"The safety of the community — we were robbed of that," Dorris said.

As Dorris grew up, she stayed close with

Had things been different, Dugard might have been part of that group, Dorris said.

But Dugard's life took a tragic turn. Authorities say she was abducted, raped repeatedly and kept in a hidden backyard lair outside Antioch for 18 years. She is now the mother of two girls fathered by her captor, police say.

Dugard's education ended June 10, 1991. She never went to school or saw a doctor after that, according to police.

Dorris had a normal childhood, went to college and returned to Lake Tahoe to work for a credit card processing company.

Inevitably, memories of her lost classmate faded, but they didn't

"Even in high school, our yearbook did a dedication to her. We never forgot," Dorris said. "Hearing the news (of Dugard's appearance) has brought back all of the memories of it."

On Sunday, an estimated 2,000 marchers carrying 1,000 pink balloons paraded down South Lake Tahoe's main thoroughfare to celebrate the re-emergence of Dugard, who identified herself Aug. 26 in a Concord police station as the lost Tahoe girl.

Supportive motorists tooted horns and marchers hooted back.

The parade was a celebration, but the mood was tempered by the knowledge that though Dugard was miraculously found alive, her story may not have a fairy-tale ending.

Dugard, her daughters and Dugard's mother, Terry Probyn, are reconnecting in seclusion and remain isolated from the worldwide media attention focused on them.

Many of the marchers expressed hope the family would see video of the parade and the outpouring of support it demonstrated.

"You would hope she would see this and get a sense of family, the fact that people really do love her and celebrate her release," said Gene Blanc, a retired Moraga resident with a cabin near the lake.

"People that don't even know her, they just love her. It's a good morale boost she's going to need."

The marchers ranged from longtime locals to children who weren't born when Dugard was pulled, screaming, into a gray sedan as her stepfather, Carl Probyn, helplessly watched.

Phillip Garrido, 58, and his wife, Nancy Garrido, 54, have been charged with the kidnapping.

Many of the marchers wore pink, Dugard's favorite color as a child. It had come to symbolize the lost 11-year-old in Lake Tahoe.

Dugard's plight stayed in the community's consciousness, first because of the deep sympathy and fervent hope she would be returned. Later, as the years went by, her name was linked to an abduction prevention program in which all South Shore elementary school students participate from third- through sixth-grade, said Kathay Lovell, South Lake Tahoe's mayor pro tem and one of the parade organizers.

A Fighting Chance teaches students how to resist and fight back against would-be abductors; Lovell said three South Shore children have escaped possible abduction using the techniques.

"For those of us who were here at the time, it never left us," Lovell said.