Photo finish

MAT-SU — Dr. Joseph Hawkins doesn’t believe finders should be keeper, nor should losers be weepers.

Wasilla resident Meghan Bowker had written off ever finding the digital camera she lost in July on a camping trip near Valdez, but thanks to the honest efforts of a Palmer chiropractor, she’s happily clicking away again on her camera.

Hawkins happened to find Bowker’s camera and could have kept the small device for himself. It was worth a pretty penny, but his conscience prompted him to do the right thing.

“Would I want my camera returned if I lost it? Of course, who wouldn’t?” Hawkins said.

On a sunny day in early July, Bowker’s family drove out of town for a weekend camping trip. Matanuska Glacier offered itself as a stunning backdrop, so the family all stopped to take a photograph of Meghan, her husband, Randy, and the girls, Elisabeth, 8, and Jill, 7.

They next made a quick side trip down Lake Louise Road to check out a once-happening trout lake. No such luck, the lake was empty.

Further down the road, another photo opportunity came at Worthington Glacier. This time, when Bowker reached for her camera, it was gone. Bowker and her family made several searches of their truck and camper, but because they’d kept it tidy along the way, making sure everything was in its place, the search yielded nothing.

Bowker retraced her steps with fervor.

“I thought, ‘Did I kick it out of the truck? Did I leave it behind?’ You can drive yourself crazy thinking about it,” Bowker said.

She then scanned the roadside on their return. No camera.

“I nourished a hope that the camera hadn’t been crushed by traffic,” she said. “I actually hoped that a kind, resourceful person would find it and, somehow, find me.”

Six weeks later, her hope and camera all but forgotten, Bowker received a phone call from Kristen Jaronik, a teacher at her daughter Jill’s elementary school. Jaronik had been Jill’s student teacher last year. She fumbled for words as she began the conversation. Then she said, “The long and the short of it is, did you lose a camera?”

Jaronik told of how she had found a fax in her mailbox at school with a picture of herself and Jill. An accompanying note asked if she knew the child and would she contact her family.

The note concluded that Dr. Joseph Hawkins, a chiropractor in Palmer, had Bowker’s camera and had been diligently searching for it’s owner since he found it along the road when he made a trip to the Matanuska Glacier.

“My sister and her husband were up visiting from Utah, doing the tour guide thing.” Hawkins said. “On our the way back from Valdez, we turned into Eureka, went for a walk and they stumbled back into camp with this camera they had found.”

Hawkins went through the pictures, didn’t recognize anyone in the photos and decided to take it home with him.

But not to keep.

He went to the Wasilla Wal-Mart and developed two-dozen of the 600 pictures saved on the camera’s memory card.

“I thought [that] someone’s got to recognize who is in these photos and lead me to them,” Hawkins said.

Three weeks went by. The photos sat in a glass case outside his office at Bionic Chiropractic in Palmer. A sign reading, “Do You Know Any of These People?” hung next to the case.

“Then one day one of my patients started looking at one of the photos and said he knew the women standing with the kids pictured,” Hawkins’ said.

The man noticed a picture taken at the Summer Birthdays school party. He identified the woman as Mrs. Jaronik, a teacher at Tanaina Elementary School. They faxed over the picture to the school with a request to contact Bionic Chiropractic. Jaronik called Bowker as soon as she saw Jill in the photo.

“She called me and said, ‘Your camera was found,’” Bowker said. “I was nearly giddy with amazement.

“I called Dr. Hawkins and he seemed as delighted as I was. I learned of his efforts to find me and was floored that someone in this day and age would go to those lengths to return something personal and valuable. It was really enduring.”

Hawkins said that if in fact the photos outside his clinic didn’t produce results, his next stop would have been the Department of Motor vehicles.

“He told me that his next attempt to track me down would have been through researching a boat serial number in one of the photos,” Bowker said.

When Bowker went to Palmer to get her camera, she didn’t return empty-handed.

“She was so nice,” Hawkins said. “She gave us all cookies, which was more than enough.”

Hawkins said it never crossed his mind to keep the camera, not once.

“There’s things you can do to return things when you find them,” he said.

Even If the camera didn’t have a memory card in it or any pictures saved on it, he would have posted an ad on a community Internet bulletin board to find its owner, Hawkins said.

“If there’s a way, gosh, use it,” he said.

Bowker said that her faith in society as a whole has been elevated a bit.

“There are still people in this world who will go the extra mile to help even a stranger,” she said. “I also find it interesting that Dr. Hawkins’ business slogan is, ‘Believe It or not, I care.’ I believe it.”

Contact J.J. Harrier at 352-2269 or valleylife@frontiersman.com.