Family sues over lost piccolo

WICKLIFFE, Ohio, July 8 (UPI) -- The family of a Wickliffe, Ohio, high school student has filed a lawsuit after the student's piccolo went missing during a school band trip to Orlando, Fla.

Sandy Rolf said her daughter, Stephanie, went on the bus trip with about 58 other members of the Wickliffe Blue Devil Swing Band to march at Disney World and compete in band contests in 2007, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Tuesday.

The students' instruments were locked in the luggage bins of the charter bus overnight while the students stayed in a hotel and the next morning, it was discovered that a bag containing two piccolos -- including the one belonging to Stephanie -- was missing.

Rolf said school officials and the driver of the bus failed to report the incident to police and officers later refused to file a report when Rolf and her family traveled to the area.

The family's lawsuit, which seeks compensation for the $700 piccolo as well as $4,300 for the time Stephanie has been without the instrument, names former school Superintendent Robert Smith, who the family claims denied the district was responsible for the missing instrument, as well as the charter bus company, Highway Coach Ltd., and travel agency Kollander World Travel Inc.