Odds and Ends

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- If people say you've got two left feet, there's a thief somewhere with a deal for you.

Nike salesman Ray Staiger said he left his hotel on Tuesday morning, and found the lock to his pickup truck bed had been broken. Staiger told police someone took 312 shoes he used as sales samples, which he valued at $10,789.

They were all left shoes. A salesman in Missouri has the right mates.

Staiger had to cancel sales presentations he had scheduled for Kansas City and Omaha, Neb., and return to Wichita for replacement shoes, paying a $500 deductible.

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PAYSON, Utah -- The idea of giving away a bakery to the best essayist was half-baked.

An essay contest offering the winner a bakery and an adjoining building, has been called off because the owners didn't get enough entries.

Roe's Bake Shoppe owners Paul and Lolly Penrod have now decided to sell the shop rather than give it away.

"The publicity was out there, but there just wasn't enough interest," Lolly said. "We didn't even have half of what we needed."

The Penrods announced the contest in April, proposing they would give the bakery to the person who paid a $100 entry fee and wrote the best essay of fewer than 300 words on the theme "Why I want to own Roe's Bake Shoppe."

In June, they decided to throw in $5,000 cash to get the bakery going, along with ownership of the historic building next door and the bakery's 60-year-old recipes. They also extended the essay entry deadline from July 1 to July 5 after not enough entries were received.

But the added time and money weren't incentive enough. The Penrods said they were hoping for at least 2,000 entries so they could pay off their roughly $200,000 in loans on the building, but they only received about 300 entries.

"We returned the money to everyone that entered, and we put it up for sale," she said. "The disappointment is definitely there, but you just have to move on."

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FORT MYERS, Fla. -- The deputy who reels in the most suspects gets to go fishing.

Capt. Randy Crone of the Lee County Sheriff's Office is offering a free fishing trip to the deputy who makes the most arrests this month.

After winning a $100 fishing trip in a raffle, Crone sent a memo titled "The Race is on!!" to 55 deputies, offering up the trip and outlining the incentive.

"It's no different than the state of Florida giving an award to an officer who makes more than 100 DUI arrests," he said.

Lee County Sheriff Rod Shoap said the contest does not encourage quotas or "bad arrests," partly because supervisors must still approve all arrests.

"How many businesses offer their employees bonuses for top performance? You tell me the difference," Shoap said.

The neighboring Collier County Sheriff's Office offers cash bonuses for deputies who serve 25 or more warrants in a year, said spokesman Dennis Huff. But that program is not a competition between deputies, he said.

"We feel comfortable because a judge has already looked at a warrant and signed off on it," Huff said.

Former Deputy Mike Scott, who is running against Shoap in the Aug. 31 primary, called the fishing-trip incentive a "poor way to motivate your troops," saying it could compromise the arrest process.

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BOISE, Idaho -- Thomas Gaide thought the caller was barking up the wrong tree. An animal shelter in California couldn't possibly have his dog, Chevy.

Chevy was right in front of him, 650 miles away at his Boise home.

But when the man insisted and mentioned a computer chip in the dog's neck, Gaide realized that after seven years, Chevy's predecessor had finally been found.

The older dog disappeared from Gaide's Hayward, Calif., backyard in 1996. Calls were made to the pound, hours were spent searching the neighborhood and countless flyers were posted to no avail.

It was six years before Gaide could bring himself to buy another black lab, and name it Chevy.

Gaide and the younger dog moved to Boise last year.

The call about the original Chevy came about three weeks ago, Gaide said, after shelter officials tracked him down through his wife, who still lives in California.

Now the older Chevy is living happily with Gaide's other three dogs, including Chevy the younger.

"The first day or two he was like, 'What's up with the new guy?' but now he acts like he remembers me, responds to me and the bond is still there," Gaide said.