Florida hurricanes churn up class rings lost for 40 years

<p>Hurricanes that struck the Florida coast this year churned up more than sand and surf along the shores of Daytona Beach. They also yielded gold _ rings of gold 40 years old.</p><p>Two Georgians are richer for it, after their high school class rings from the 1960s were found by a modern-day prospector using a metal detector in sand stripped of several layers by the storms.</p><p>"It was just a real big shock for me. That's 40 years. You just don't expect something to turn up," Larry Mitchell said Tuesday.</p><p>His 1964 Clarkston High School ring, lost on spring break that year, was returned over the weekend. It was found by Lorrie Sprigg of Casselberrry, Fla., who was prospecting about a quarter-mile south of the Daytona Beach Pier one weekend in October.</p><p>On a separate outing, Sprigg found a 1963 ring from Christian County High School, which she traced to Kentucky and then to Beth Townsend, who now lives in Columbus.</p><p>Townsend said she wasn't even aware that her ring had been lost in Florida, where she was on spring break three consecutive years including 1965, when it disappeared. She had forgotten about the ring until her sister saw an ad placed in Kentucky during Sprigg's search for the owner.</p><p>Townsend, who works at a health food store and does counseling at her church, was struck by the fact that it took the storms to shift enough sand around that the ring was found.</p><p>"In counseling, we always say that in a crisis things get shifted. That happens in the natural world, too," she said.</p><p>Mitchell, 59, who is retired and lives in Jackson, said he was told that the storms washed away six to eight feet of beach, and his ring "was still a foot down."</p><p>"What's amazing is it's just like brand new. I thought with all that salt water and all it would be ruined, but it looks just like it did the day I got it," Mitchell said.</p><p>He said the ring is too small to fit him now, but his wife is wearing it proudly.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2004/11/156174