E. Texas waitress receives $1000 tip

GUN BARREL CITY,TX (KLTV) - An East Texas waitress got a little help with college expenses after receiving a generous tip.
18-year Alesha Palmer is a little over a month from graduating and has been waiting tables about 30 hours a week to save up.

"I mean, this can't be happening, this has to be a dream, not in little Cedar Creek area," Palmer said.

The Kemp High School senior says she still in shock after receiving a $1000 tip Saturday night.

"I would like to thank him deeply and utterly. It's not every day that you come across someone that's as sweet and generous," Palmer said.

The 18-year old has been working at Vetoni's Italian restaurant in Gun Barrel City for almost a month now. She says Saturday she was serving two tables, a couple she had known and the soon-to-be generous tipper.

"They were asking about my college plans and told them my parents were helping," Palmer said.

The gentleman was sitting alone and when he went to pay Palmer noticed him talking to the restaurant owner.

"I went up to the owner, Mike and asked if I had done something wrong," Palmer said.

But she had done everything right.

"He turned over the receipt and I kind of just stood there wide eyed and I just started crying and I'm in the middle of the restaurant," Palmer said.

Manager Jennifer Brown says the biggest tip a waiter had received before was $100.

"We had a lawyer that would come in here and would leave $100 tips because he worked his way through law school," Brown said.

Even those who received nothing say the generous deed has given them something money can't buy.

"It restores your faith; there is just so much bad going on and you always hear of all the bad. You don't hear the good," Brown said.                                                                   

Palmer says this receipt is one she'll hold on to as a reminder when times are tough.
"It's definitely going to help me when I have a hard day and I'm stressed out I'm just going to think that in the back of my mind," Palmer said.

The tipper did wish to remain anonymous.

Palmer says after graduation she will attend TJC and get her degree in business; after that she wants to get a degree in culinary arts.
Her goal is to open her own pastry shop.

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