diamonds and passport lost and found and luggage just plain lost

It's nice to see a story like this, and I sincerely hope that somebody over at Best Western corporate will take notice and reward this good deed.

My wife left a text book in a hotel room once. We phoned the hotel when we realized the book was missing but they weren't able to find it. It was a text book, expensive but of little value to most people. The hotel, btw was a very well known resort hotel that you probably have heard of.

Keep paying it forward!
Who knows, you or I could be a recipient.

Wytheville Enterprise

Wythe County, Va.
Lost and found: diamonds and passport returned

MARY BETH JACKSON/Staff
The Wytheville Enterprise
Thursday, December 21, 2006

When Donna Russell entered room 115 to start cleaning Dec. 11 at Best Western, she found a small brown suitcase and reported it to her supervisor, thinking the guests had not yet checked out.

But they had.

Russell opened the suitcase to see if there was any contact information. She found a lovely diamond necklace in a box with a bow. "Woman probably have a fit if she don't get it," she said.

Then she saw a passport.

"I said, 'oh no, these people can't get into Canada!" said Russell, who has worked nearly three months with the hotel.

Meanwhile, Hattie Bolsby and her husband, Clare, were making the 11-hour drive from Wytheville to their Ontario home, miserable and distraught with severe colds. They'd cut short a visit to see Clare's sister in Florida to avoid spreading their illness to family.

Feeling so wretched, they never realized a piece of their luggage was missing ? one with their checkbook, bank records, Canadian and U.S. money for tolls, and other valuables. Upon arriving in Ontario, they dragged into their home and checked their messages.

"It was a shock when the machine said, 'we have found your suitcase here,'" Bolsby said.

Bolsby added, "We hadn't even missed it. We wouldn't have until the next morning because we were ill and weren't going to unpack the car."

She was delighted when the suitcases arrived Tuesday, missing nothing.

"We could have had identity theft," she said. "That was the most important suitcase we had."

If she had known it was missing, she said, she wouldn't have expected to get everything back.

"I've worked in the service industry and I know how things can drop," she said. "It is so easy for people to pick up things when they are in the service industry."

For Bolsby, it might have been a blessing that returned to her. She says she once returned a lost money clip and diamond rings to their rightful owners.

She says she's sent thank you notes to Russell and her supervisors at Best Western and plans to stop in on her next visit to give her thanks in person. "People around here are saying there are angels down there, and some are saying 'Santa visited you,'" she said.

Russell says it's all in a day's work.

"I tried to do the right thing," she said. "I'm thankful they got it, too."


And before we leave the lost and found, here's one to think about as you travel the airways and fairways. It comes to us courtesy of Billingsgazette.com.

Airline luggage found near Houston store


HOUSTON (AP) -- Authorities were trying Tuesday to figure out how dozens of pieces of luggage belonging to air travelers ended up in a trash bin behind a Houston pet store. The store's owners discovered .... link