Goodwill bin find in Oklahoma City leads to return of 70-year-old diploma to New Mexico

Eddie Sein said he found the diploma while searching through the bins at an outlet in Oklahoma City. He saw it belonged to Ted Arvizo, who graduated from Grants High School in 1954. (KOAT via CNN Newsource)

GRANTS, New Mexico (KOAT) -- An Oklahoma TikToker who found a 1954 high school diploma at a Goodwill bin in Oklahoma City spent more than a year trying to return it before finally finding its home back in Grants.

Eddie Sein said he found the diploma while searching through the bins at an outlet in Oklahoma City. He saw it belonged to Ted Arvizo, who graduated from Grants High School in 1954.

Sein said the diploma’s condition immediately stood out.

“Mr. Ted Arvizo graduated, what, 70-plus years ago in 1954, and the diploma was in such great condition that I suspected that maybe it was donated by mistake,” Sein said.

The diploma was not stained, creased or otherwise damaged, leading him to believe it had been carefully preserved over the years.

Sein posted the discovery on TikTok hoping to find Arvizo or his family, but the initial effort gained little attention. He kept the diploma at home for about a year, saying he could not bring himself to throw it away.

When he posted about it again a year later, the video began drawing comments from people connected to Grants High School here in New Mexico.

“One of the first comments I got was, you know, ‘Hey, that’s my high school,” Sein said. “So I was like, you know what? At least it’s in the right area of the United States.”

As more people commented, Sein said some users began to connect him with Grants High School Assistant Principal Miranda Barajas, who told him the school would be glad to receive the diploma.

He said he has since mailed it back to Grants High School, where he hopes it can be preserved as part of the school’s history.

“For me, this is almost like a time capsule,” Sein said. “Now the students of today at Grants, they can go back and see some of the students that came before them.”