A jewel of a coincidence

Losing an Ohio University class ring can be a big disappointment. But a few lucky alumni have been reunited with lost rings thanks to the initials they had engraved inside them and some crafty detective work by university employees.

• Richard Robinson, BSED ’72, of Douglasville, Ga., was vacationing in Cozumel, Mexico, six years ago when he removed his class ring to try on some jewelry in a display basket at a shop. “I was halfway to the Cayman Islands before realizing my ring was in that basket,” he said. A maintenance man recently found it on the roof of a Valparaiso, Ind., school while fixing the air conditioning. He sent it to Ohio University, and staff members tracked Robinson down in March and returned the ring.

• Aaron Monroe, BSME ’73, of Cortland, Ohio, lost his ring at a Florida beach in 1992. He was surprised to learn several years later that Patricia Wells of Sebring, Fla., had found it while combing the beach with a metal detector in 1994. Wells contacted the university, and the Registrar’s Office combed its database of 1973 graduates with the initials ADM. “I was the only one to graduate that year with those initials,” Monroe said.

• Louis M. McKee, BBA ’56, of Tucson had lost his ring — a present from his wife three years after graduation — several years ago. Enter Tim Kanavel, who tracked McKee down with help from the Office of Alumni Relations after finding the ring in a Tucson parking lot. “I spotted it as I opened my truck door and a piece of paper blew out and landed close to the ring, which was barely sticking out of the ground. Some luck!”