TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2011
One GRAND deed
Surrey woman finds honesty can be found in the unlikeliest of places – like under the hood
Doris Seelig wasn’t expecting a pleasant surprise when she received a repair quote from Newton Auto-Care, but that’s exactly what she got.
Tom ZYTARUK Staff Reporter
W
hen an auto mechanic tells you he has a surprise for you, it’s usually bad news. But not this time. Newton senior Doris Seelig, 70, found out recently that some businesses still live up to their name, and that the folks at Newton Auto-Care really do care. She’d called the garage last week after her Chrsyler Concorde went on the blink, and they came to pick it up at her house. Sometime later, she got a call from the shop, telling her what had to be done and when she could pick the car up. When she got to the garage, manager
Ken Payne presented her with a $600 bill for parts and labour. “He said, ‘Well, I’ve got another surprise for you, and I said, ‘Oh my God, it’s going to cost even more now,’” she recalled. That’s when he put a white letter envelope in her hand, containing $1,000 in cash. Mechanic Kelly Hunt had found it while he was working on Seelig’s Chrysler, and told his boss. “I had to get at the fuel pump,” Hunt explained. “In order to drop the fuel tank down, you gotta remove the back seat. Once I removed the back seat, that’s when I found the envelope.” Seelig had been missing that cash since July. It was one month’s pension that she’d
saved to go on a trip to Oregon with her Clover Loafers seniors group. She thought somebody had stolen it out of her camper. “It was terrible. I never thought that it would come back, never,” she recalled. So how did it get inside her car seat? Seelig figures she’d likely put the envelope on the seat during a shopping trip, threw a blanket over it, and it slipped down. See PHOTO, thenownewspaper.com She was so grateful, she called the Now. “He didn’t have to tell his boss,” she said of Hunt. “He could’ve just kept working on the motor. He didn’t have to tell anyone.”
❚PHOTO/Beau Simpson
For Hunt, her expression was reward enough. “She was just in shock,” he said. “She couldn’t believe it – she couldn’t believe she found the money after all this time.” Seelig says she’s saving the $1,000 for her next vacation. “The Washington coast is very nice,” she giggled. Indeed, lesser men might have been tempted to pocket the cash. But not Hunt. “Y’know, it’s karma, man,” he offered. “It’s just one of those things, that if you screw around like that it’s going to come back and haunt you at the end of the day.” He ended up being right about that karma thing. Seelig bought him a case of beer, for his honesty. tzytaruk@thenownewspaper.com
❚PEOPLE/Marlyn Graziano takes helm at the ‘Now’
Now’s new publisher returns to where she started her journalism career
MARLYN GRAZIANO
SURREY – The Now is proud to welcome Marlyn Graziano as its new publisher. The appointment was announced Thursday by Craig Barnard, senior vice-president of Postmedia Community Publishing Group. Graziano replaces former publisher Gary Hollick, who is pursuing other opportunities. Graziano is a former editor of the Now. She left the paper in 2000 and took on the corporate role of editorial director for the community pub-
lishing group, a role she will retain. Prior to her role as editor at the Now, Graziano was reporter and editor at the South Delta Today, North Delta Optimist and White Rock-South Surrey Sounder. “I am so excited to be back where I started my journalism career, covering school board in Surrey in the 1990s,” Graziano said. “Through the ensuing years, I spent many hours covering council in Surrey, White Rock and Delta. While much has changed in the last
20 years, it’s interesting to see that many issues remain the same. “People want to know what is going on in their community, they want to feel they are being consulted and they want to be part of the process. Community newspapers are instrumental in keeping people connected with the communities, and I am proud to be back as part of the Now team.” For the past 10 years, Graziano has worked closely with editorial and sales teams throughout the com-
munity publishing group to develop new publications and new approaches to delivering news on multiple platforms. She has been instrumental in leading the community publishing group’s Digital First strategy. Graziano and her husband Dave Londry have raised their family in Surrey’s Fraser Heights neighbourhood, where they have lived since moving to B.C. from Ontario in 1989. – The Now