Posted 06/30/2016 9:48 pm
The local ABC television station is reporting that the White House is going to send Betty a replacement coin.
They station also showed a different coin, a National Park Service (NPS) commemorative silver dollar.
The theft is not Betty's first brush with numismatic fame.
On March 9, 2016, she visited the San Francisco Mint to take part in a ceremonial striking of NPS centennial commemorative half-dollar coins.
From SfGate News:
It's not easy leaving the U.S. Mint in San Francisco, not even for a 94-year-old woman.
That's because the U.S. Mint makes coins, and it wants to keep the coins it makes, and it doesn't particularly trust its extra-special invited guests, even when they're 94 years old.
The 94-year-old woman was Betty Soskin, the oldest National Park Service ranger in the U.S., whom Mint officials had invited Wednesday to be the guest star at a special ceremony. Her job was to press a black button attached to a coin press and make the first half-dollar in the Mint's new commemorative coin series honoring the Park Service. This she did with flair, pushing the button on cue and sending a shiny coin sliding down the chute while about two dozen guests applauded politely.
But when it came time to leave the Mint, Soskin was subjected to the same rigorous metal detector check that all departing Mint employees must go through, to make sure none of the Mint's stock in trade is hitchhiking out the door with them. And she flunked it, six times in a row, setting off a bank of red lights as if it were a pinball machine.
"Oh no," she said, sweetly, after a Mint cop asked her to remove her Park Service tie pin, and then she said, "Oh my goodness" when the cop asked her to remove her belt, then her shoes, then her jacket, then her watch, then her Smokey Bear hat, and each time she set off the red lights again.
"Is it my bra?" she asked with a twinkle, but it wasn't that. Finally a guard used a handheld wand and asked Soskin to stretch her arms and her legs and, at long last, the U.S. government decided that it was reasonably certain its oldest park ranger was on the up-and-up and she was permitted to depart the premises.
They station also showed a different coin, a National Park Service (NPS) commemorative silver dollar.
The theft is not Betty's first brush with numismatic fame.
On March 9, 2016, she visited the San Francisco Mint to take part in a ceremonial striking of NPS centennial commemorative half-dollar coins.
From SfGate News:
It's not easy leaving the U.S. Mint in San Francisco, not even for a 94-year-old woman.
That's because the U.S. Mint makes coins, and it wants to keep the coins it makes, and it doesn't particularly trust its extra-special invited guests, even when they're 94 years old.
The 94-year-old woman was Betty Soskin, the oldest National Park Service ranger in the U.S., whom Mint officials had invited Wednesday to be the guest star at a special ceremony. Her job was to press a black button attached to a coin press and make the first half-dollar in the Mint's new commemorative coin series honoring the Park Service. This she did with flair, pushing the button on cue and sending a shiny coin sliding down the chute while about two dozen guests applauded politely.
But when it came time to leave the Mint, Soskin was subjected to the same rigorous metal detector check that all departing Mint employees must go through, to make sure none of the Mint's stock in trade is hitchhiking out the door with them. And she flunked it, six times in a row, setting off a bank of red lights as if it were a pinball machine.
"Oh no," she said, sweetly, after a Mint cop asked her to remove her Park Service tie pin, and then she said, "Oh my goodness" when the cop asked her to remove her belt, then her shoes, then her jacket, then her watch, then her Smokey Bear hat, and each time she set off the red lights again.
"Is it my bra?" she asked with a twinkle, but it wasn't that. Finally a guard used a handheld wand and asked Soskin to stretch her arms and her legs and, at long last, the U.S. government decided that it was reasonably certain its oldest park ranger was on the up-and-up and she was permitted to depart the premises.
