Honesty can still be found.

For several weeks earlier this year, Tennessee painter Tom McAnally worked on a number of large jobs in the area of Elk City, Oklahoma. One day in early May, after completing a number of projects without making a bank deposit, McAnally stopped at a convenience store in Elk City to purchase gasoline. Not until he reached the site of his next job did he realize that the $11,000 in cash he had placed in a hip pocket was gone.

The frantic painter rushed back to the convenience store, where he learned that two men, Danny Sipes and LeRoy Gaines, had found the cash in the store's parking lot and turned it in to store manager Jimmy Clark. Clark then turned the money over to the Elk City Police.

When McAnally showed up at police headquarters, he easily identified the currency as his, since little blue paper dots were mixed in with the bills. "He keeps the dots in his pocket for good hick," AP reported, "because his wife once won $100 with a scratch-off lottery ticket after she tore a blue dot out of a newspaper."

McAnally, somewhat astonished that he was able to recover the money so quickly and completely, lauded Sipes, Gaines and Clark for their honesty, noting that "finding that much money would be a temptation for anybody." Expressing the hope that they would be appropriately recognized for their actions, McAnally believes that "something good for them will come out of this."