Being extravagantly wealthy is really, really hard sometimes. It's like you own so many expensive things it's hard to keep track of them all. Especially, when you're jetting off between all your different luxury homes all the time. You're bound to lose something once in a while. Sometimes you just have to rely on the kindness of jobless strangers.
Take part-time Miami couple Roger and Janis Wackenhut Ward for example. They recently had a very pricey 12-karat diamond ring returned to them by an unemployed man who went out of his way to find them.
Last year, the Wards had been staying at their part-time ski home in Cordillera, Colorado. They were at the Eagle County Airport about to come back to their home in Miami (records show they may still have a home on Fisher Island) when Janis realized she had lost her ring.
It wasn't just any ring though. It was a one-of-a-kind, 12-karat yellow diamond ring given to Janis by Roger for their 30th wedding anniversary. They had airport staff search for it. Snow was even plowed in the search. They didn't find it.
Maybe because Mark Epple did first. He spotted the shiny bauble laying on a sidewalk in the terminal, and figured it was costume jewelry (because honestly who wears jewelry like that out everyday?) and pocketed it. Only when he got back to his home in Minnesota did he realize it was real, and after contacting the lost and found department of the airport the ring was finally tracked back and eventually returned to the Wards.
Epple was until recently an architect but was laid off from his job.
Rogers tells a Denver news station that the ring was worth several years of salary for an architect (a job that isn't exactly a minimum wage gig), and offered a reward for Epple's honesty.
Epple refused the cash reward as a lesson for his children but did accept an offer to use the couple's Colorado home for a ski vacation.
It's heart warming in economic times like this to hear stories of nice things happening for rich people. Good to see the upper class catching a break every now and again.
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