Young or old, ethical dilemmas happen all the time.  Several weeks ago, Jeffrey Seglin of Charlotte Observer told the story of Eunice Kwon, the Pasadena High School student who won a Rotary Club district's annual ethics-essay contest by writing about how she and several of her friends who were "the smart kids" at school had lapsed into a culture of cheating.  It was only after a friend told Kwon that he had found a password to a teacher's online grading book and easily could change all their grades that Kwon's ethical sense was jolted. She realized that her previous infractions of the rules, "no matter how petty, were all forms of cheating."

The customer got the tip While vacationing on the San Juan Islands in Washington with her husband, Genie Hufham of Charlotte visited a restaurant gift shop and decided to buy a jacket that bore the restaurant's name. The hostess put the jacket into a bag and told Hufham that the cost would be added to the bill for her dinner." After driving 15 miles back to our hotel," Hufham writes, "we realized that the cost hadn't been added to the meal bill."  The following day they returned to the restaurant to pay for the jacket. The hostess recognized them from the night before, and the waitress who had forgotten to add the charge to the bill was summoned.  "I wanted her to know that I would never be able to wear it without thinking that I had taken advantage of her mistake," Hufham says.  They settled the bill, and today Hufham wears her jacket with a clear conscience.

An open-and-shut case  About two years ago Karen A., a reader from Southern California, was putting her kitchen through a substantial remodeling. She located the cabinet pulls she wanted, and had a saleswoman at the store copy the catalog page and make a note of the sizes and prices for her. When she returned, some weeks later, the same saleswoman assisted her. Unfortunately Karen had misplaced her notes, so the saleswoman pulled up a price on her computer. "She said that the cabinet pulls were $6.48 each," Karen writes. "I was sure they were discounted to me previously to $4.34. I was insistent, and she agreed to let me order them for $4.50."  The pulls arrived, and Karen picked them up without any problem. A few weeks later, however, she came across her original notes and was horrified to see that the quoted price had indeed been $6.48. Many cabinets had been involved, and the different was significant -- a total of about $100.  When she returned to pay the money she owed, Karen was directed to the accounting office, where a confused clerk looked up and asked, "You want to pay more?"  Karen went through what she calls her "I-will-sleep-better-at-night explanation." The clerk consulted with another clerk, she writes, and the two of them went into the back office, where Karen heard them let out what she calls "a giant isn't-she-stupid roar."  "Thankfully," Karen writes, "honesty is its own reward ... and a great sleeping aid, too."

Tried as juveniles I received several letters from juniors in Beverly Graves' literature class at Worthington Kilbourne High School in Columbus. Graves, who has been teaching English for 34 years, often uses newspaper stories to make literature relevant to her students.  "It's a great way to update the choices the kids are struggling with," she says.  One student learned how long it can take to repair the damage done by even a small lie earlier this fall, when she told her mother that she would be spending the night at a friend's house and instead spent the night at Bowling Green University in a girlfriend's dorm room. Weeks later her older sister innocently let the secret slip.  "I've lost my trust," my correspondent says. "I'm still kind of grounded."