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Couple returns gift, restores man’s faith in humanity

A Christmas gift that bounced out of the back of a truck and into a ditch near Red Deer was destined to make it home for the holidays.
A01-Local-Halter
A Christmas gift that bounced out of the back of a truck and into a ditch near Red Deer was destined to make it home for the holidays. The shoe-box sized gift

A Christmas gift that bounced out of the back of a truck and into a ditch near Red Deer was destined to make it home for the holidays.

The shoe-box sized gift, wrapped in red paper and gold ribbon, with a tag that read, ‘To Lori, love Frank,’ contained a new leather horse halter for an 11-year-old black Morgan named Kash, owned by Lori Begg.

Her husband, Frank Begg, bought her the gift. The couple live in the Red Deer area.

The present was in the back on their truck with other gifts when it tumbled out while the couple was driving between Gasoline Alley and Sobey’s South the evening of Dec. 18.

Frank went back and searched the roads three times without luck. His wife called radio stations, posted the misfortune on Facebook, and placed a classified ad in the Red Deer Advocate.

By Dec. 23, Frank had the halter back, ready to be re-wrapped.

A young woman and her boyfriend found the gift along the county road between Costco and the Word of Life Church.

“I was baffled when they said they found it three or four days later,” Frank Begg said.

“They just happened to be driving by and her boyfriend saw something in the ditch.”

First the woman searched the lost and found site on Kijij. Then someone told her to look in the Advocate, where she found the ad.

The halter is worth about $110.

“I was pretty happy to get it back. You think you’ve lost something forever and you just kind of wonder where it ended up or who ended up using it,” Begg said.

“She definitely restored my faith in humanity.”

Lori Begg got the biggest surprise — two horse halters — the one that was lost and found, and one her husband bought as a replacement.

She didn’t know what was in the gift box that was lost until she opened the present on Christmas Day.

Begg said that halter is her favourite.

“(Kash) has never had anything so nice. He looks pretty darn handsome in his new halter.”

szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com