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FindersGivers LosersWinners
by Sarah Koehler Denise Covington was having an ordinary morning. She got up and went to her job at Goodwill, where she has worked since May 12, 2004. Self-described as someone who usually works in the back room and stays quiet, this day she was sweeping the floor by the jeans rack. "I bent down to pick up a pair of jeans, and I saw something shiny," Denise said. "I knew immediately what it was and who it belonged to.” Denise had found the 1.2 karat diamond that customer Baelynn Brown had lost at the store three weeks earlier. Before Baelynn went shopping, she had been painting her house. The diamond came loose from the prongs of her ring. Baelynn hadn’t noticed that her diamond was gone until the day after she was shopping at Goodwill. She immediately backtracked and retraced all of her steps, but the diamond could not be found. Three weeks later Denise was sweeping the floor. She was all alone; no one saw what she was doing. Later, Baelynn asked Denise, "Why didn’t you just put it in your pocket?" Denise answered, "I didn’t ever think about it. You just don’t do things like that." Instead, Denise went and told her manager, Lynn McCook. Goodwill protocol specified that they turn a report in to offices in Little Rock. The next day they were able to call Baelynn. Baelynn came to Goodwill right away, and of course, the diamond fit into her empty setting. "Baelynn was so excited,” Denise said. "I was glad that I had found it instead of someone who would have kept it. While we were talking, I told her that I had never had a diamond before." Baelynn got her diamond back on a Monday. On Wednesday, she returned to Goodwill with a special thank-you gift for Denise, but Denise was off. Baelynn came back to Goodwill on Thursday and gave Denise her own diamond ring. "The ring fit perfectly," Denise said, as she proudly displayed her diamond. "It was like it was made for me." While Goodwill had returned lost money, ID’s and credit cards to their owners, Baelynn’s diamond is the most valuable item that a Goodwill employee has ever given back. “We are really proud of Denise," said Shirley Barnum, who is in a supervisory role at Goodwill. "I think her story shows customers that we are honest and trustworthy. We want to make sure that the service our customers receive is on the up and up." Denise Covington has lived in Searcy all of her life. All of her family is in the area. Her mother and father are Jim and Edith Wiley. Denise has two children: Ashley, a daughter, and Reagan, a son, who is married to Tisha. |
