You may have heard about the 11-year old twins from Owatonna, MN named Nick and Nate Smith. At a charity hockey event in nearby Faribault recently, Nate shot a puck from center ice 90 feet into a tiny hole where the goal usually is to win a $50,000 raffle. Except it was Nick who was supposed to take the shot, and he wasn't anywhere near the building at the time.
Apparently, according to news reports, nobody in the family was comfortable with the situation, so the boys' father Pat confessed to the organizers the following day.
While an insurance company in Nevada determines whether or not the Smiths deserve the money (which probably would have been earmarked for college), the boys and their parents are enjoying their 15 minutes of fame making appearances on the networks' morning news shows, answering the same old questions.
Do the Smith boys get to keep the money? No. Mr. Smith was sneaky enough to substitute a twin brother to take the shot. Would this be an issue if Nate had missed the shot? Probably not. But major props to the Smiths for having a conscience, even if this is the wrong era to give up that kind of money.
The moral of our story: Honesty may be the best policy, but it can cost you an awful lot of money.
UPDATE As expected, the Smith boys do not get to keep the money. The Nevada-based insurance company decided to spend $20,000 on youth hockey programs in the boys' names, which would certainly deepen the tax burden on their father. What happens to the rest of the money is unknown. File this under "no good deed goes unpunished".
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