Two boys reap rewards of honesty

The visitor whose $4,000 was returned is one of many showering the boys with gifts, praise and attention.

By TAMARA LUSH, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 19, 2002

TAMPA -- Andrew Pride never expected to see the $4,000 in cash he lost last week during a golfing vacation.

He looked in his hotel room, searched the pancake restaurant where he ate breakfast and rifled through every pocket in his jacket. He told his buddies that the money was gone for good.

"I'm not even going to look for it," said the Chicago man, who went on with his golf game as planned.

If someone found that kind of cash, he thought, they would never turn it in.

Pride was wrong.

Two Tampa boys found the cash on the ground as they waited for their school bus. They stuffed the $100 bills into their pockets and when they arrived at Greco Middle School, the pair handed the money to the assistant principal.

The boys -- Jarvarious Jones and Oscar Carter, both 13 -- have become local celebrities because for their good deed. Today, the Hillsborough County School Board will give them a commendation. A Tampa City Council member is considering another proclamation.

Area businesses have rewarded the boys with a range of gifts, including aquarium tickets, dinners at Outback Steak House and a free hockey game at the Ice Palace. Bay area residents flooded the school with calls, wanting to give money, savings bonds, even scholarships, to the boys.

This weekend, Jarvarious was interviewed on CNN.

"It's a surprise," said Jarvarious' mother, Jacqueline Jones. "One day, we're regular people. The next day, everything's changed."

On Monday, Andrew Pride returned home to Chicago. During a telephone interview, the 72-year-old Pride said the boys affected him beyond words.

Pride, a cousin of country-western singer Charley Pride, has rewarded the boys nicely and will continue to do so. He took Oscar and his family out to dinner at Piccadilly Cafeteria on Saturday, then took the boy clothes shopping at Syms.

"He said, "Mr. Andy, you don't have to take me shopping, you may need money to pay your hotel bill,' " Pride recalled Oscar saying. "That was touching."

Pride said he didn't know that Jarvarious had also found the cash and returned it; the two were supposed to meet on Monday but Jarvarious overslept. Pride said he gave a school official some cash for Jarvarious and plans to send him some more. "I don't want to leave him out," said Pride.

Pride, a semiretired car salesman, said he doesn't normally carry that amount of cash. He withdrew the money from his bank account and wanted to get traveler's checks, but was running late and didn't have time, he said.

He had placed the cash in his jacket pocket on his way to breakfast and figures it must have slipped out. How it ended up at 50th Street and Temple Heights Road is a mystery.

Pride is still stunned that the boys, whose families could have used the money, turned it over to authorities. "I couldn't imagine it at all," he said. "They could have been 67, and I wouldn't think they would turn the money in."

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