Mike Rahn is wearing his 1988 Ark City High School ring with pride again.

The ring was stolen when Rahn's home was burglarized in 1993. He saw it again for the first time last week, when a Good Samaritan in Arkansas found it and mailed it back.

"It was pretty hard to believe," says Rahn.

Rahn received an email from Greg Bland of Belleville, Arkansas, over a week ago.

Bland, an avid hunter, was on the river banks of the Petit Jean river near Danville, only a few miles from his home in Belleville. As he was hunting, a shiny object near the river's shore caught his attention.

"It looked like a bottle cap at first," says Bland.

But on closer inspection, Bland uncovered a gold ring with a sparkling purple stone in the middle. Rahn's name is inscribed inside, though whoever stole the ring many years ago tried to scratch it out.

"I got on Google," says Bland, "and I found this guy in Arkansas City, Kansas."

At first, Bland thought he had the wrong guy. There's also an Arkansas City, Arkansas.

But an email and follow-up phone call left both men certain the ring found in a river 300 miles away did, in fact, belong to Rahn.

Bland says the ring was a distance from the bank, and because the water was low it was easier to see. He says the only way the ring could have made it out that far from the bank is if it was intentionally thrown into the water.

Neither men know how long it may have been there.

"I asked him if he would take a reward for this," Rahn says. "He said no, he wasn't interested in any money. Not even postage."

"I was just excited to be able to find him and get his ring back," says Bland. "Then when I heard the story behind it, I thought it was pretty cool."

Rahn may never know the crook who stole his ring in the first place, but he says he's happy to know the Good Samaritan who returned it.

As a way of saying thank you, Rahn has invited Bland to hunt on his rural Cowley County property.