Football players stop traffic to save $700. A deputy gets it home. Now he’s in for a Feel Good Friday surprise.

EastIdahoNews.com is partnering with Smith Honda in Idaho Falls to honor people in our community for Feel Good Friday. Every week, we surprise someone deserving of special recognition.

A Bonneville County man thought $700 in cash was gone for good after his wallet flew off the top of his car.

What he didn’t know was that a group of Bonneville High School football players, and a determined Bonneville County Sheriff’s deputy, were going out of their way to make sure every dollar made it back to him.

A few weeks ago, Allen and his wife went out to dinner when they suddenly received a concerning phone call from a neighbor. The neighbor told them a sheriff’s deputy was standing on their doorstep.

“As you can imagine, a certain amount of panic set in,” Allen said in an email to EastIdahoNews.com.

Then Allen’s sister called. A deputy had also shown up at her home, about 10 miles away, asking if she knew Allen. She initially panicked, too — until the deputy explained why he was looking for him.

He had Allen’s wallet.

Allen believes he had accidentally left the wallet on top of his vehicle before driving away. Somewhere along the way, it fell off near the roundabout on Lincoln Road, sending the wallet and around $700 in cash flying into the road and wind.

That’s when Sloan Harrigfield, Cruz Beck and Ethan Wells, football players at Bonneville High School, saw what happened.

The young men stopped and scrambled around the roundabout, gathering the scattered cash and helping make sure it was recovered. Their actions ultimately helped get the wallet and the money into the hands of the sheriff’s deputy.

But the deputy didn’t simply turn the wallet in and move on.

He began trying to track Allen down. He went to Allen’s home, then traveled roughly 10 miles to his sister’s house looking for him. He left his phone number, connected with Allen and arranged to meet him back at his house.

Allen estimates the deputy spent at least an hour trying to make sure the wallet got back to its rightful owner.

By that point, Allen had already accepted that the cash was probably gone.

“I’d resigned myself to the cash being gone but was happy to have my wallet back,” he said.

Then the deputy handed it over and everything was there.

The deputy also made sure Allen knew about the Bonneville High School students who had chased down the flying money. He gave Allen their names, allowing him to contact the boys and invite them to his home. Allen thanked them personally and gave each of them $100 as a token of his appreciation.

Allen says he wishes he could remember the names of the deputy and the students, but in the whirlwind of everything that happened, he no longer has their information.

What he does remember is their kindness.

“This fine young deputy deserves some recognition,” Allen wrote in a nomination to EastIdahoNews.com. “We are so grateful.”

We were able to track down the deputy who helped Allen out and surprise him for Feel Good Friday. Check out the video in the player above.