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Man Reunites With Lost Ring After 45 Years

Reporter: Lily Wu

Man Reunites With Lost Ring After 45 Years

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Bob Harrison lost his class ring in 1967 while attending College of the Redwoods in Eureka, Calif.

Today, he wears the Del Norte High School Class of 1966 ring on his finger.

"I looked at my initials in there and said, 'That's it. That's mine. How do those kinds of things happen? It was just an awesome experience. I needed that really bad," said Harrison.

In 2010, he lost his wife, Annie, to bone marrow cancer. He felt his luck would never turn around.

"I haven't had a lot of luck the last few years. Things haven't gone very good," he said while recalling Annie's two-year-long battle with cancer.

On July 14th, his luck changed.

A classmate asked him if he had lost a class ring.

"She said, 'It just got 'BH' inside it, in big letter initials,' and she said, 'I've taken [it to] the other three guys out of the yearbook, besides you, and I've already verified that it's not their ring," said Harrison.

After the conversation, the man who found the ring contacted Harrison. A few days later, the ring came in the mail along with a note.

"It was just a good feeling to get the owner back the ring. The only thing it would mean anything to me would be the monetary value but I know the value to him is a lot higher than that," said Bob Webb, who found the ring in Eureka. The retired construction worker found the ring between 1998 and 1999, while digging the ground to make way for a sidewalk.

After finding it, Webb said he contacted the school but failed to find the owner. The ring sat on his dresser for nearly 13 years. A few weeks ago, he found an acquaintance that graduated from Del Norte High School and the search began again.

"Had I had a computer, I could've probably done it a lot faster but what I did is somebody else did the footwork for me on the computer and it didn't take no time at all to find the owner. Had I known that, I would've probably got it back to him," said Webb.

Harrison feels lucky to have the ring back and gives credit to Annie.

"Forty-five years it's been gone and I still believe that my wife had something to do with this," said Harrison.

Harrison plans to personally thank Webb and his wife in California sometime this Fall.