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The campers found $500 inside but realized how bad they'd feel if they had lost the wallet.
By EILEEN SCHULTE
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 22, 2002
CLEARWATER -- At the Long Center early Tuesday, Zach Durbin and Jake Kruger were preparing to board a bus with the rest of the Totally Teen campers to go on a field trip to the Tampa Bay Skating Academy.
But they needed to go to the bathroom first.
That's where they saw it: a black leather Eddie Bauer wallet sitting on the floor near the water fountain.
Zach and Jake, both 13, raced over and opened it. To their amazement, they found five $100 bills, a platinum Visa card "and some other stuff" inside, said Zach.
They stood there, stunned.
"I didn't think anyone would have to carry $500 unless they had to pay a bill," said Zach.
"Or he was very, very rich," said Jake.
They hesitated. They dreamed of new computers. Then they made their decision.
"I lost my wallet once and never got it back, so I know what it feels like," said Jake. "I didn't want that person to feel like that."
With that, they picked up the wallet and took off running to the gym with it, yelling: "Miss Lois! Miss Lois!"
When they found Lois Mays, recreation leader for the city of Safety Harbor, they breathlessly told her, "We found a wallet in the bathroom!"
She took it from them nonchalantly. But the boys would not walk away.
"They said, no, you have to look in there. There are $100 bills in there," Mays recalled. "Their eyes were huge."
Mays saw the cash. She also looked at the identification, took it to the front desk and asked the staff if anyone by that name had signed in. No one had. She checked back 15 minutes later and found out the person who had lost the wallet was near the pool area. She took it to the man, telling him two young campers had turned it in.
His response?
"The money is probably gone," Mays remembered the man telling her.
She told him it was all there, every cent.
The man thanked her and walked away, never bothering to seek out Zach and Jake and thank them, or offer them a reward.
Mays said the man is not a member of the recreation center and she does not remember his name.
Mays, a teacher, felt terrible for the children, both participants of the camp sponsored by the city of Safety Harbor.
They were waiting for her when she returned. They were eager to know how the man felt to get his wallet back.
"Their biggest thing was, 'What did the man say?' " Mays said. "I said he was really happy to get his wallet back. He really needed the money."
In reality, the man had said nothing.
Jake and Zach knew the man had never thanked them.
Mays felt she had to do something for the boys, so she gave them each a $15 gift certificate to Best Buy.
Jake's parents are proud.
"I'm impressed with his honesty," said his stepfather, Kevin Connolly. "He was under peer pressure. A couple of kids wanted him to keep it."