17-year-old Andy Marlowe, a Newport News, Virginia, high-school student who played on the varsity football and baseball teams, spent his after-school hours and summers working for his father's janitorial business and recently won the Duty to God award at his church. When Marlowe needed to raise money to pay for the missionary assignment he wanted to fulfill through the Mormon Church, he hit on the idea of offering to repaint people's house numbers on curbs for $10 each. The idea was an instant success.

It also brought him to the attention of the city's engineering department, which cited him for painting on public property without a permit, and warned him that each painted number (he painted more than 40) would constitute a separate offense. Further, they claimed that Marlowe's activities began four years earlier; the teenager said it had only been a few weeks. Marlowe faces fines totaling $750.

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