By Richard Dye
Finding money on the sidewalk isn”t all that uncommon. Handing that money over to the police is.
That”s why what a Provo woman did in the late afternoon on Monday surprised people.
“It”s quite refreshing … it”s a good show of integrity,” said Lt. Doug Edwards of the Orem Department of Public Safety.
Although people do turn in the money they find, it was the amount and effort put into this situation that was unique, Edwards said.
The woman, Patricia Reading, a BYU alumna, was running errands Monday near the civic center in Orem. As she walked down the sidewalk, she noticed a $5 bill on the ground before her.
Reading said when she first saw the money she thought “cool.”
“Then I thought about some kid [dropping it] and I”d be upset if it was me,” she said.
She picked up the money and turned it in at the nearby Orem Department of Public Safety building.
Reading said she would rather have avoided all the attention and hassle if she had known what a commotion her find would make at the police station.
“I would have turned it into the library lost and found instead of the police,” she said, “to not have to hassle with the press and forms.”
The forms she is referring to are the ones she would have to fill out to make a claim and then wait 90-days to receive the money.
She chose not to fill out the forms, forfeiting her chance to receive the money.
“I told the [police] staff to put it in their doughnut log,” she said, referring to a stash of money her office uses to buy doughnuts on Fridays.
Reading said she actually hopes that someone will go in and claim the money.
The police said that if anyone could accurately tell where he or she lost it, they could come claim the money at the Orem Department of Public Safety.
Then again, if anyone knew where he dropped $5, he would probably pick it up.
