Unsung heroes. (The Goodness of America).

Salt Lake Tribune columnists Paul Rolly and JoAnn Jacobsen-Wells occasionally report instances of honesty and Good Samaritanism. On March 18th, for instance, they noted three refreshing examples of "unsung heroes who restore our faith in humanity":

* On February 22nd, West Valley, Utah, residents Earl and Sandy Helm drove to downtown Salt Lake City to participate in some Winter Olympics activities. While walking to a site after parking their car, they realized that Mrs. Helm's wallet was missing. As they were retracing their steps, a woman approached and asked if their name was "Helm." She had found the wallet and had waited to see if someone would come looking for it. She left without giving her name.

* Denver resident Frank Simons and his wife "recently traveled to Salt Lake City to move his mother out of her home and into a senior-living complex." During a yard sale, they met painter Michael Sovic, whom Mr. Simons hired to paint his mother's home once it became vacant. "One day," the columnists relate, "Sovic was painting in the back of the house and asked the Simonses to follow him into a back closet that he was preparing to paint. Under the paper lining of a shelf was a pile of hundred-dollar bills." The stash totaled nearly $3,000. Thanks to Sovic's honesty, it "paid for a hearing aid for Simons' mother."

* In early May, Salt Lake City resident Brent Parrish purchased a 1983 Porsche 911 convertible from Baxter's Auto Haus in Salt Lake. Shortly thereafter, he realized that the Porsche was missing an owner's manual. He called the auto company, but no manual could be found. Three months later, however, owner John Baxter called Parrish to let him know that he had located a manual. "When Parrish arrived at Baxter's," Rolly and Wells write, "he got more than an 18-year-old manual. To his surprise, he got a check for $399." Baxter had reviewed the sales agreement and discovered that he had inadvertently overcharged his customer that amount in sales tax.

* And finally, an incident reported by Rolly and Wells on March 15th involved Julie Carli of Salt Lake City, who had lost an envelope containing more than $1,500 in cash four days earlier. After discovering the loss, "she retraced her steps and placed signs the next day in the businesses she had visited." That same day she received a call from an employee at a Wells Fargo Bank branch, informing her that Kathy Carpenter, a manager at a supermarket in nearby Sandy, Utah, had found the envelope and turned it into the bank. (In addition to the money, the envelope contained a Wells Fargo deposit slip.) According to Rolly and Wells, "Carli, ecstatic over a stranger's honesty, rewarded Carpenter with $100."