Making peace with his past

Time is supposed to heal all wounds, but Ken Coman sent two apology letters and $250 for good measure.

Fifteen years have passed since Coman was a student at Keystone Elementary School in Spokane Valley. The 26-year-old is now a father and recruitment manager in Ogden, Utah, but he never forgot a mistake he made in the fifth grade.

The guilt followed Coman for years. His crime? He stole a geode rock and a few light switches from the school’s science fair supply box.

“I’d always felt that was wrong, and I needed to make some kind of restitution for it,” Coman said.

No longer willing to bear the shame, Coman sent the school an apology letter and $50 to compensate for the items he took. He sent Evergreen Middle School a similar letter and a $200 check because he remembered cutting some photos out of books in the library there.

“I felt so bad for stealing those items, I can honestly say I never stole anything again,” Coman wrote in the letter to Keystone Elementary.

Geodes are egg-shaped rocks with crystals inside. The light switches were probably worth a few cents each, Coman said.

“I had no need for any light switches with my science fair project, but I thought, ‘Those sure look cool,’ ” he said in an interview Wednesday.

Mike Coman, 48, of Spokane Valley, guessed that his son probably used the rock and light switches for one of his many backyard projects. They nicknamed Ken “Robocamper” because he was always building rocket ships, boats and “extraordinary tree forts,” Mike Coman said.

Ken Coman doesn’t remember what he did with the items.

“The shame of it all is when I got them home, I felt awful for taking them,” he said. “I couldn’t use (the switches) for anything, and I didn’t know how they worked.”

Superintendent Mike Pearson presented the letter at a recent school board meeting as an example of the lifelong-learning skills students take away from Central Valley School District.

Coman hopes principals in the district can use his letters to teach other children not to steal.

“If there is ever a kid brought to your office for stealing, tell him it is not worth it, and unless he wants to worry about it until he is 26 he should change his behavior,” he wrote.

Over the telephone, Coman said the principals could leave out the details about what he stole since kids these days are probably more into stereos and computers than rocks.

Karen Toreson, who was principal at Keystone when Coman took the items, said his gesture also serves as a lesson for teachers. Their actions and advice sink in, even when they feel their words are falling on deaf ears, she said.

“You never know the impact you’re having on children,” said Toreson, who retired two years ago after 31 years with the district. “Sometimes you don’t even know they’re listening. Years later, they come back and thank you.”

Toreson remembered Coman and his siblings being nice kids. Ken Coman’s mom, however, remembers the more mischievous details of her oldest son’s past.

“He was probably at the peak of his ‘moments’ in the fifth grade,” said Susan Knudsen, 48, of Orem, Utah.

Knudsen recalled sending Coman to his room once and telling him to grab a slotted wooden spoon on his way. It was a trick, though. Instead of getting a spanking, Coman got a lecture on how his life would be full of holes like the spoon if he didn’t start paying more attention in school.

Coman straightened out and eventually his siblings labeled him “wholesome to the bone,” his mom said.

Coman became so wholesome he once refused to get paid for working at Taco Bell. His schedule included a Sunday shift, but Coman is Mormon and didn’t agree with working on Sundays. Instead of asking his boss to change his schedule, he just worked without clocking in on those days.

“He would do it as a service,” Knudsen said.

Coman said he feels good now that he’s cleared his record with the school district, and he hopes others know that it’s never too late to say sorry.

“Pretty much everything wrong that I’ve done I’ve tried to make peace with,” Coman said. “Now, I’m just in maintenance mode.”