Lost class ring returned after 37 years

KateLynn Slaamot
NLJ Correspondent
 
When David Chick lost his class ring in a snowball fight around Christmas time of his junior year of high school in Saint Joseph, Missouri, he thought he had seen the last of it. Little did he know that 37 years later, it would be found and returned to him. 
Chick received his class ring as a gift from his aunt at the beginning of his junior year in 1984, but he joked that he was an irresponsible teenager. As a result, it wasn’t long before he lost his ring in that fateful snowball fight the day before Christmas break started. 
Of course, Chick said, he didn’t give it much thought after it happened, thinking that it was gone for good and there was nothing he could do about it. 
However, on Monday, March 1 of this year, he received a phone call from a man in Chillicothe, Mo. The man talked with him for some time, Chick said, and asked him several questions to confirm who he was. This included Chick’s middle name initial, high school football number, and more — information that was engraved on his class ring
After they talked for a while, the man told Chick that he thought he had something that belonged to him. After verifying that the man had his long-lost class ring, Chick said, he was very surprised. 
“It was a complete shock,” Chick said. “I hadn’t thought about that ring in years.”
According to Chick, the Chillicothe man lived only about 60 miles from Saint Joseph. A previous weekend he had gone to an estate sale and purchased a box of antique cameras, and at the bottom of the box were four class rings. The man then tried to track down the owners, but he was only successful in finding two of the four owners. He found Chick through Facebook.
Chick immediately asked the man what he could give him to get the ring back, he said, but the man said that all he needed was his address and he’d send the ring to Chick. After he received it in the mail later that week, he went home, where he tried on the ring, and much to his surprise, it fit. 
“It hadn’t been on my hand in 37 years,” Chick said. 
Chick’s aunt was the first person he called to tell her he got his ring back, he said, and she was excited for him. He also took to Facebook to share his interesting story, and his post received a lot of positive feedback, with over 600 likes and more than 200 comments. 
Chick sent the Missouri man a thank you card and something for his efforts to show his gratitude.
“There are good people out there,” he said.