Owner of Memory Card Found

Mark Hansen is Totally Shocked and Delighted by the Generous Determination of Strangers

by Loni Rahm, Photo above of Trish & Kelly

On Tuesday, LakeChelanNow issued a challenge to the community — help us identify the owner of a camera & memory card that was found along a trail in Sedona, Arizona. A little over 24-hours later, I was talking with a shocked and delighted Mark Hansen who thought the camera and its 8+ years of memories stored on the card were gone forever.

We were equally delighted by the news, but not necessarily shocked. Within minutes of publishing the story and our subsequent Facebook post, LakeChelanNow’s community partners started sending us clues and leads based upon the pictures we posted.

One community partner recognized the house and gave us the general location as the Chelan Hills Acres area. Another thought the owner of the house was a regular at Lone Pine Fruit & Espresso and encouraged us to contact their staff for an ID. (Actually, Hansen was at Lone Pine earlier on the day he called)

The most compelling lead was a comment from a subcontractor who recognized the house under construction as one he had worked on, and volunteered to contact the general contractor for the owners’ name.

And then the phone rang. A gentleman named Mark Hansen left us a voice mail letting us know that Zach from Chelan Glass had knocked on the door of his house, told him someone had found his camera/memory card, and urged him to call us. That in itself would have been a happy ending – but the story continued to evolve.

Hansen told me that he and his kids had been hiking in Sedona in June, and the camera worked its way out of his pocket while walking. He searched for it, but had no idea exactly where it may have fallen. Disappointed, but practical, he wrote it off as lost.

The same day during the same hike, Hansen found a set of keys for a rental car sitting next to a bench along the trail. He called the rental agency and they agreed to contact the customer and let him/her know where they were. Hansen left the keys visible so the customer could easily retrieve them. Two lost items. One found.

The ladies who found the camera added yet another twist to the story. Trish and her wife, Kelly (pictured above left to right) live in Placerville, California. Trish said she had just laid her mom to rest and they took some time away for themselves in the peaceful surroundings of Sedona. When they spotted the camera, they immediately realized the camera itself was beyond repair, but felt the memories contained on the card might represent a similar loss to the one that they were experiencing.

They took the card home and scrolled through the images, looking for a hint of where the owner might be. A few images showed multi-generations gathered for Christmas, other scenic shots portrayed a river view, and several pictures showed a house under construction – one with a visible Lake Chelan Building Supply logo on it. All of which eventually led Zach to Hansen’s front door.

I let Trish know that the area where Hansen’s house is located had experienced a significant wildfire this summer and fortunately, his home survived. The home, and the pictures of its construction, are both intact.

Keys lost and found. Pictures lost and found. House still standing.

Now that’s a happy ending.