Boy’s Rich Future Was in the Bag

--This is the week that Eric DeWilde, the penniless orphan, becomes an independently wealthy adult. Three years ago, having run away from home in Hollywood, Fla., after a scolding by his aunt, he found a sack alongside railroad tracks where he was walking. Inside were jewels worth $346,800. Police were notified, but no one ever claimed the bag. Most of the 76 unset diamonds, rings, bracelets and brooches the teen-ager found were auctioned off last year by Christie’s in New York. On Wednesday, his 18th birthday, all that money goes to DeWilde, who was orphaned when his mother died of cancer a decade ago. His father had died in a car accident just before the boy was born. A few weeks ago, he left his part-time $3.55-an-hour job taking inventory at a South Broward department store. Although the youth has expressed some interest in a Lamborghini, a $130,000 Italian sports car, he’s not giving away any details on what he plans to do with his fortune. His aunt, Modena Trost, however, said she’s sure DeWilde will invest the money, as she has advised. DeWilde, who dropped out of high school in the ninth grade to “escape harassment” from envious peers, says he may go to trade school later.

--As state Republicans pinned the tail on the Democratic donkey at their annual picnic in Hamilton, Mass., former Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker Jr. joked about his 1988 presidential aspirations and firmly aligned himself with President Reagan. “For a man who was not originally a Reagan admirer,” said Baker, who lost the 1980 Republican presidential primary to Reagan, “I have become a Reagan admirer.” At the $35-a-head picnic, about 400 Republicans took aim at the donkey with darts bearing the names of Massachusetts Democrats Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. Baker, 59, retired in 1985 after 18 years as a senator from Tennessee. After he declined to announce his presidential candidacy for 1988, he quoted his 102-year-old grandmother as advising him to run for county sheriff instead, because “that’s where the power is.”

--Sharlene Wells, the reigning Miss America, says women who criticize beauty pageants either have “never been involved” or have “been involved and lost. Miss America is the largest source of scholarship money in the country,” said Wells, 21, who hopes to obtain a master’s degree in business administration. “It provides $4.5 million annually. I will receive about $35,000. Women today are more concerned about a career,” and education “takes a lot of money,” said Wells, a guest at the Miss Illinois competition in Elgin. The winner and 1985 Miss Illinois was Karen Marie Moncrieff, 21.