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An honest gesture

What do you do when a wallet with $800 in cash in it just falls at your feet?

If you're Kyle Nace of Lehighton, you turn it over to the police.Nace, 35, of Bankway, was standing in front of his house just before 5 p.m. on a Friday afternoon earlier this month when he heard something roll.He looked on the ground and there at his feet was a wallet. Falling out of it were credit cards, pictures of children, and money lots of it.The wallet fell off a vehicle as it passed.Another motorist saw the wallet fall and stopped. The second motorist, a male, told Nace he knew whose wallet it was and would return it to her.Nace didn't believe him. He told the motorist, "I've already called the police about it."At that point Nace hadn't, but he did as soon as he got into the house.The identification in the wallet showed it belonged to an Allentown woman, who works in Lehighton, and police returned it to her along with all the cash in it."People have said to me, 'Why didn't you keep the money?' I'd want someone to return it to me," he said.Officer Matt Arner of the Lehighton Police Department said the woman had the cash to pay her mortgage. He said, "I spoke with the person that lost the money. She was extremely grateful for Kyle taking the initiative for finding and returning the wallet."I wish there were more people like Kyle that choose to do the right thing," Arner added.Arner said the woman had stopped at the Carbon Mini Mart for gasoline and placed her wallet on the car. She forgot about the wallet and it fell off while she was driving on Bankway en route home. When Arner had called her about it, she hadn't even known at that point that it was missing."She told me the money was to pay her mortgage," said Arner. "If she didn't have that money, she and her family didn't know what they would have done."Nace said it was an easy decision to find the owner of the wallet, because he knows first-hand the inconvenience of losing one and not having it returned.He said last winter he lost a wallet on First Street with $270, his driver's license, and Social Security card in it."I didn't get anything back," he said. "No driver's license. Nothing."They could have just thrown the wallet in the mailbox, but they didn't," he said.He said his father was with him when the wallet fell off the car and the money fell out of it. His father, William Nace, also instructed him to call the police.Nace said the owner of the wallet showed her appreciation by giving him a $20 reward.

RON GOWER/TIMES NEWS Officer Matt Arner, left, of the Lehighton Police Department chats with Kyle Nace, 35, of Lehighton. Nace found a wallet with $800 in it and called police. It was returned to its owner.