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Class ring returned after 63 years!

15 Aug 2017

Ever since I was a young boy I've been drawn to stories of lost treasures, missing fortunes, and the world beneath the waves. I first discovered the hobby of metal detecting about 6 years ago when my Father introduced me to it but letting me use his detector and I've been hooked ever since. I've met some great people along the way, friends who have metal detected with me, and guided me in the hobby. Mike is one of those friends, and this past year he suggested that I become a certified scuba diver so that we could go under water metal detecting together. Again all of those childhood dreams resurfaced, and I had visions of sunken galleons, and lost fortunes. I agreed to give it a shot, and this Spring I obtained my certification through a local dive shop. Now I began to search for an underwater metal detector to suit my needs. I watched countless hours of underwater metal detecting on YouTube and noticed that a lot of the divers were using Minelab Excalibur II's. I decided that this was going to be the detector for me.

Mike and I began diving early in the Spring, and although the water was cold we began to find older coins, and lost jewelry. At one particular spot we discovered old anchor barrels on the bottom and realized that this indeed must be the spot where at one point the people had anchored an old swim raft. Mike found an old wedding band with a date of Sept. 25th 1921 engraved on the inside. It was a very nice find and we decided that we should return to this site to look again.

On our return visit, We headed straight for those old anchor barrels and began detecting the slope that led down to that point and it was there that I discovered the class ring! I was very excited, I swam over to Mike to show him, and he knew too that this was the first class ring I had ever found. We did an underwater "high five" in celebration for finding the gold ring and continued on with the dive.

A number of great silver coins were detected that day as well, Mike found a Ben Franklin half dollar and a really nice silver religious necklace and a number of other silver coins (he's using the Excalibur II as well). An I also found a couple of silver items too, but I couldn't wait to get back to shore to inspect the class ring.

When we surfaced and went ashore, we began to look at the class ring. It was from the class of 1952. I told Mike that it may be hard to find the owner of the ring because it would make her about 82 years old, but I would try to do a return anyway.

At first we misread the school name that was in tiny print at the bottom, but we eventually discovered that it was from Storm Lake High School located in Iowa. I found their Facebook page and began asking for help, looking for someone with a year book so I could put a name to the initials. They put me in contact with the alumni association, and the association was able to give me a name and a current address, but they didn't have a phone number. So I began searching the internet and cross referencing the address I was given.

After a short period of time I began to discover that Carol's name kept appearing but with a different last name. So I assumed that maybe she had been re-married. So I did a search under the new name and was finally able to come up with a phone number. Now I was very skeptical, the address and phone number were from Arizona, but I decided to give it a try. I left a message on the answering machine, and Carol returned my call about 5 minutes later. She told me that she had lost a class ring, but that was 63 years ago, when she and her friends were swimming. She also told me that she was a long way away from home, Her father was working to build a school and my area and that's why she was there. After a short conversation on the phone I convinced her that I had her ring and sent her pictures to ensure that it was. She called me back to tell me "I can't believe you found my ring! I never thought I would see it again!" She then asked me what she had to do to get it back and I told her that I didn't want anything for it, just a picture of her with the ring for my scrapbook.

I had the ring cleaned by a local jewelry store and I mailed it to Carol. She sent me the picture the next day with a note telling me thank-you and how much she was going to love telling all of her friends this year at a re-union about how her ring came back to her. It is such a rewarding feeling to do a return like this one, and I can't wait to find another one, to do it all over again! So now my dreams continue, to lost fortunes, and the excitement of returning them as well...

Van - WI, USA.

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