Wimmer serves on the House's Revenue and Taxation committee, but that doesn't seem to count for much, either.

Alter or his staff sometimes appear before that committee. "You would think he would know the sitting legislators on that committee. But then there are a lot of people" on the unclaimed property list, Wimmer said, adding he, too, had no idea where the money the state is holding for him may have come from.

(Wimmer later found out that his was a check from a car dealership where he recently purchased two vehicles. Wimmer doesn't know why he would get a check. "But, hey, that (dealer) has my current address," Wimmer said.)

Others on the list include: Derek Parra, Olympic gold medalist in skating; the late state Sen. Eddie Mayne, D-West Valley, (heirs can claim property of family members); and Deseret News/KSL-TV pollster Dan Jones. Also on the list are longtime journalists Dennis Lythgoe and Scott Iwasaki of the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune writer Tom Wharton.

Unclaimed property administrator Kim Oliver said about 25 percent of this year's claims are coming because a life insurance firm — Prudential Properties — converted from a policyholder format to a stockholder format. Thousands of policy owners could no longer be found by the firm for their payouts.

"Maybe your mom or dad bought you a life insurance policy when you were a little kid," said Oliver. "You've moved since then and Prudential couldn't find you" when the ownership policies were cashed out. "So if you think you were with this firm, you could be getting something."

She said Utahns should check the Web site, not just the printed newspaper insert. The Web site also contains unclaimed property from previous years. The 25,000 names in Wednesday's insert represented just unclaimed property that came in to the state since October 2007.

Alter's office invests unclaimed property money — which annually exceeds $100 million in total. Once a year his office confers with the state finance division to decide how much of the unclaimed property has little or no chance of being claimed, then that amount is transferred to the Uniform School Fund to help pay for public education across the state. Last year's total was $18 million.

If you have some unclaimed property, the state does not pay interest for holding it. However, if that property is a stock, which has been receiving dividends, then the real owner will get those dividends, Oliver said.

In a 2005 story on unclaimed property recipients, the newspaper quoted Hispanic activist Tony Yapias saying it is unfortunate that the state uses Social Security numbers as the main citizen I.D. to verify someone's property claim. Most illegal immigrants, many of them Hispanics, don't have a Social Security number. And though they are probably lower-income and could really use that little extra money, they can't get it even if it is owed them.

The 2008 unclaimed property list has thousands of Hispanic names on it — including, wouldn't you know, one Tony Yapias.

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E-mail: lee@desnews.com; bbjr@desnews.com