Someone mailed a Florida school a calculator from 2006. The mystery is who sent it
Someone mailed a Florida school a calculator from 2006. The mystery is who sent it A TI-83 Plus calculator belonging to Lincoln Park Academy was anonymously mailed back 20 years after a member of the class of 2006 apparently took it home. Now, school officials want to know who sent it and why. A TI-83 Plus calculator belonging to Lincoln Park Academy was anonymously mailed back 20 years after a member of the class of 2006 apparently took it home. Now, school officials want to know who sent it and why. It was supposed to be a routine day at Lincoln Park Academy when a strange package showed up in the mail. Inside the package was a TI-83 Plus calculator that had apparently belonged to the school, and it was being returned nearly 20 years after a student from the class of 2006 had it. There was no note, no name and no explanation — just a calculator and a mystery. Principal Michelle Herrington said her secretary came into her office after dismissal with the unusual message. "We've got a really odd package today," Herrington said. The return address simply identified the sender as "the class of 2006." Inside was the calculator, with no indication of which former student had sent it. And the postage was not exactly cheap. "They paid a lot of money to send this calculator back to us. The postage was almost $10," Herrington told WPBF. Herrington said the school was both surprised and touched. "We were really appreciative that somebody 20 years later actually thought of Lincoln Park Academy when they were cleaning out their stuff and found their old high school calculator," she said. The mystery gets even better School officials have tried to figure out who the mystery student might be. So far, they have no idea. Someone even suggested putting the class of 2006 to a vote to determine which former classmate was most likely to have returned the calculator two decades later. Former students have already started tagging classmates on social media and asking if they were the one behind the package. Still, no one has claimed it. "We have no idea who it might have been," Herrington said. She said, technically, the student was supposed to return it. The calculator was not necessarily meant to become a 20-year-old souvenir. "Usually, students have to return all of these items that are assigned to them before they can even graduate," she said. But if the mystery student was worried about getting in trouble after all these years, Herrington has some good news: "They will not. And there is no obligation list and no money that is owed," she said. Who could it be? A student who was at Lincoln Park Academy in 2006 would now be roughly 38 years old, Herrington said. That got her thinking about what that person might be doing today. "They probably have a family with children and a solid career somewhere," she said. The calculator itself may offer another clue. The school says it was etched with "LPA123," a marking identifying it as Lincoln Park Academy property. "We had a teacher at the time, we're told, who labeled her calculators. Coincidentally, she was my high school math teacher as well, but she would etch this in there. So it is labeled LPA123, but you have to kind of hunt for it and feel for it to see the label that's on there. That would have reminded them it belonged to us," Herrington said. While there is no return address, she said the U.S. Postal Service tracking number comes back to a post office in Palm Bay, Florida. A calculator becomes a piece of school history When asked whether the TI-83 Plus is even a model the school uses anymore, Herrington said it's not. "This one, they don't make anymore," she said. But Herrington says the school now plans to treat the returned calculator as something more than an old piece of technology. "I think we should put it on display. I think it's something that we're going to keep sacred and special," she said. A message bigger than the item inside For Herrington, the story is not really about a calculator. Instead, it's about the connection former students can maintain with their school decades after graduating. Herrington is an alumna herself, and Lincoln Park Academy has a long history. The school opened in 1923 and has a motto established in the 1950s: "We do right because it's right to do right," Herrington said. She hopes that message may have stuck with the mystery student. "I'd like to think that even all these years later, the motto of 'We do right because it's right to do right' stuck with somebody, and they decided the right thing to do was to return a calculator that they found in an attic somewhere," she said. Herrington said the school has a strong connection with its alumni because of its small classes and long-standing community. "The people that graduate from here, the students that graduate from here, they generally form really tight bonds because we have smaller classes," she told WPBF. She hopes that is what the mystery student felt when they stumbled across the calculator. "As fond as the students are to us when they leave, we hope that we create those types of memories for our students when they leave," Herrington said. The mystery student is officially invited back If you are the person who found an old calculator while cleaning out your house and thought, "I should probably return this," Lincoln Park Academy wants to hear from you. Herrington said there are still more than 20 teachers on campus who were teaching at the school in 2006, meaning someone may recognize the former student. "If you are the person from the class of 2006 that returned this calculator, we'd love to know who you are," she said. And if the sender was worried about any consequences? Don't be. Herrington said the calculator has made it home, and the now-former student is not in trouble. One question remains: Who spent nearly $10 to mail a 20-year-old calculator back to their high school, and why did they do it anonymously? Herrington says there is only one way to find out. "We'd really like to know who it is," she said. Stay up to date: The latest headlines and weather from WPBF 25 Get the latest news updates with the WPBF 25 News app. You can download it here. Follow us on social: Facebook | X | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok