THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 21, 1995 TAG: 9506200104
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Around Town
SOURCE: Linda McNatt
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
Brandon Lyons' mother, Pat Lyons, calls her 8-year-old son a ``money magnet.''
He's constantly finding pennies, nickels, dimes, even dollar bills.
But a couple of weeks ago, on a rainy night in front of Farm Fresh in Smithfield, Brandon found a real bonanza.
``Mom,'' he remembers saying, ``this is the most money I've ever found.''
Was it ever.
Brandon had spied a plastic sandwich bag on the wooden platform where the plants are lined up in front of the grocery store. When he picked it up, he says, he saw the bag was filled with green. He had no idea how much money was in it.
It was a little scary, he says, so he handed the money to his mother.
``If a penny is in the area, he'll find it,'' she says. ``I figured he'd probably found a $5 or $10 bill.''
When mom's counting got to $1,000, she stopped. She says her mouth fell open.
``My first thought was that it probably belonged to a senior citizen. I could just imagine some little old lady who had lost her life's savings.''
Then, Lyons says, the idea struck her that maybe the money was part of a drug deal. Maybe somebody had put it there to be picked up.
At that point, if Brandon was scared, so was mom.
But neither of them could do what might first come to some peoples' minds. They couldn't keep it.
``I didn't even have time to think about it,'' Lyons says. ``Before I could say anything, Brandon said, `Mom, we've got to turn this in.' ''
So the two of them, along with brother Matthew, 5, strode into the store and handed over the plastic bag containing $1,220 at the customer service desk.
``Whether it was legal or illegal, I knew it didn't belong to us,'' Lyons says.
The grocery store clerk called the Sheriff's Department, and it didn't take Sheriff Charlie Phelps and his staff long to find the rightful owner.
``I feel pretty confident that this lady is the owner,'' Phelps told me the following day. ``She's described the bag, where she lost it and how much was in there.''
It turned out the woman had just cashed a large tax refund check. She was lucky the money was found by honest people, Phelps said.
``I try to teach my children that, if it's not yours, you don't keep it,'' Lyons says. ``Pennies are OK, but if you find a whole bunch of money - turn it in. Turn it in.''
The lessons must have been learned well, especially by Brandon.
``My mind said, `Keep it,' '' little Matthew piped up, grinning mischievously.
I wondered what my mind would have said.
When I saw the note on the Sheriff's Department log that's faxed to our office each morning, I was curious about the ``large amount of money'' found at Farm Fresh.
I called Phelps and joked, ``You know that money you found last night? It was mine.''
Phelps laughed and said my call was about the 10th he'd gotten that morning. And then he told me about the honest little boy who found it, the boy who never thought about keeping it for himself, who didn't even give anybody else time to think about it.
``If we had picked up that money and kept it, what kind of example would that have set for my sons?'' the young mother said. ``We are doing our best to raise decent human beings here. We've got to set an example.''
Brandon, a straight-A student at Hardy Elementary, will be in third grade this fall. His brother will be in first.
Before I ended my visit with the Lyons, their mother gave them one further bit of advice:
``Always be good boys.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by LINDA McNATT
``Money magnet'' Brandon Lyons relaxes with his mother, Pat, and
younger brother, Matthew.
by CNB