CRESTVIEW — Carol Brown, a secretary at Laurel Hill School, has found the owner of several mementos mistakenly donated last year to the school.
"I couldn't just throw them away," she said, referring to items including a scrapbook of family photos, report cards and a birth certificate.
After investigating the box’s contents, searching the Internet and receiving help from school staffers, Brown found a Crestview address and phone number for Leslie Atkinson, whom she believed owned the items. She drove to his last known address, asked neighbors about Atkinson, and received the phone number for Vicki, Atkinson's wife.
"I was puzzled when she first called, but as she explained further, I was then flabbergasted," Atkinson said. "… I am amazed that someone would go through the trouble of doing that.”
Atkinson, who moved to Tuttle, Okla., with his wife last October, said he was donating several boxes of National Geographic and Reader’s Digest magazines to the school's library last summer when he accidentally included the mementos.
"It may have been another year until I would have noticed that it was missing," he said. "I would never have guessed it would have been located at Laurel Hill School."
Brown said she was glad to finally reach the mementos’ owner.
"(I was) so happy to find Mr. Atkinson," she said in an email. "It was a great feeling to be able to talk to him."
Atkinson works for the civil service in Oklahoma City. Previously, he worked at Eglin Air Force Base for 10 years.
He and Brown are making arrangements for Brown to mail the box of belongings to Oklahoma.
Contact News Bulletin Staff Writer Matthew Brown at 850-682-6524 or matthewb@crestviewbulletin.com. Follow him on Twitter @cnbMatthew.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Laurel Hill School staffer finds Okla. man, will return lost mementos