A few months ago, our Studio Mill began working on a project to renovate a couple of screening rooms in the Old Animation building. They were working hard to restore the original Kem Weber appearance of the space while upgrading to state-of-the-art technology.
As they began to gut the interior of the space, they cut into the wall and found a lone screwdriver on the floor inside. While a random misplaced tool might have been dismissed, not long after that a few workers were cutting into the ceiling opened it up to find a note pinned inside. It said, if anyone finds a screwdriver, please return it to Ara Manogian. The note was given to the lead who was told they had in fact found a screwdriver that same day!
After calling the number on the card, they discovered that the note and lost screwdriver had been hidden behind the wall since 1987. While the number left on the card was no longer in service, they were able to track Ara through the business name and get in contact with him. After 28 years, Ara finally was able to recover his screwdriver. John Kuni invited Ara to come to the Disney Studio lot and retrieve his lost item. He explained that in 1987 his company was contracted to work a job replacing nearly 3000 locks around the studio over a three month period. He was changing out a lock when he dropped his favorite screwdriver behind the wall. Ara knew retrieving it would be impossible, so he left the note in the hopes that one day it would be found and returned to him. He surely didn’t expect for it to take as long as it did – but late is better than never!