CSI: Bentonville
Lost BHS Class Ring Returned to Owner
Last updated Wednesday, April 27, 2005 10:24 PM CDT in News
By Sharla Bardin
The Morning News
Related Photos
BENTONVILLE -- Fellowship of the ring, indeed.
It seems Bentonville has its own tale of a unique ring, although it is quite different from the one featured in J.R.R. Tolkien's novels.
This story involves the journey of a 1977 senior class ring.
It started when Cab Craig, then 17, attended a state track meet in central Arkansas. The Bentonville senior was sporting his new ring, decorated with an emerald stone on top and images of runners on one side and the Tiger mascot on the other.
Craig had received the ring only a short time before. He took it off momentarily that spring day in 1977 to wash his hands in a restroom.
He left and noticed a few minutes later that he forgot the ring. Craig returned to the restroom, but the ring was nowhere to be found.
"I was not happy about it," he said. "Those rings are not cheap. I certainly was not going to be able to get another one."
But was it gone for good?
Leslie Porter and her husband were digging in the front yard of their Little Rock home two years ago when Porter discovered the ring.
It was buried "a good 3 or 4 inches deep" in the ground.
Porter knew the piece of jewelry didn't belong to her family and had no idea how it got into the yard. She placed the ring in her jewelry box with the intention of locating the owner.
Porter recently was sorting through her jewelry box to find items for a garage sale and noticed the ring, which has Bentonville High inscribed around the stone.
She called Keri Bullington, the district secretary, last week to explain the situation and then mailed the ring to the district.
Bullington and Galen Havner, an elementary school principal, did some detective work to track the owner. They used the initials in the ring to find a match in a yearbook.
Ultimately, Craig emerged as the owner.
A local graduate of the class was able to provide information about Craig, and the school sleuths also learned that Craig's sister lives in Bentonville.
Contact was made.
Craig, who lives in Houston, was "very excited and quite surprised" about the news, he said Wednesday.
The ring may not fit now, but he welcomes its return.
"I hope they feel as good about it as I do," Craig, now 45, said of the experience and those involved.
They do.
"I just think it's great," Porter said. She hopes that, if the situation were reversed, someone would do the same for her.
Bullington also had fun.
"We felt like we were on 'CSI,'" she said of solving the mystery.
Oh, and about that long-lost ring. It was mailed Wednesday to Craig.
Reader Comments (No comments posted.)
The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsibility of their authors. The Morning News does not review comments before their publication, nor do we guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by our comment policy. If you see a comment that violates our policy, please notify the web editor.
Not already registered?
