High school class ring found, returned 50 years later

DOVER, N.J. >> It took 50 years, but a lost Morris Hills High School class ring has found its way back to its owner.

It doesn’t fit her ring finger anymore, but after reuniting with her long-lost ring, Elaine Somers proudly flaunts it on her pinky.

In 1968, Somers was an 18-year-old senior at Morris Hills High School, wearing the class ring her mother bought for her the year before. She was at Hurd Park in Dover with some friends when the ring slipped off her finger, never to be found again, or so she thought.

Five decades later, Kinnelon

resident Gus Seretis dug it up from the dirt and mailed it to her.

“I credit Gus for his honesty and his work to track me down. I think that’s wonderful. Someone else would have sold it for some money,” Somers said.

Seretis is a metal detectorist and finds old relics and personal trinkets on any given day. His hobby has helped many reunite with their missing items, often of sentimental value.

He uses his metal detector all over the world, but when he’s home, he likes to visit Hurd Park. When he dug up the ring, he noticed the initials EMS carved on the inside and the words Morris Hills High School at the top. He knew he had to find its owner.

“If there is an identifier or initials or markers, I do the detective work to trace it back. I do it. If I find the owners or family of the owner, I give it back,” Seretis said.

The Dover native searched high and low. He contacted the high school, reached out to the alumni organization and called several people before he reached Lynda Downey, who manages the Morris Hills High School Alumni Facebook Group as well as a regional alumni website. Downey moved to North Carolina a couple of years ago and, coincidentally, that is where Somers lives, too.

“I put it on my site, then put it out (on Facebook) to see if anybody could help. My girlfriend Jackie lives down here, and she’s the one that thought it might be Elaine,” Downey said.

Not knowing if Somers was the true owner or not, Seretis emailed her a photo of the ring and told her where he found it. At first, Somers thought it was a joke. She had considered it long gone, but it was, in fact, her ring. Seretis mailed it to North Carolina, and in return he received a photo of Somers with the ring on the only finger it fits, her pinky.

“After a certain time, you don’t worry about high school things anymore. But I reminisced on high school years and it brought back high school memories,” Somers said.

As for Seretis, he continues to indulge in his hobby, which has taken him to Greece, Canada and Bulgaria. He owns a collection of trinkets he’s found, including an archaic stone ax, military relics and many pretty old things.

“The oldest thing I’ve got attached to human existence is this Greek bronze statute from 300-400 B.C. I found that in Greece randomly walking a wheat field,” Seretis said.

He’s happy to have returned the ring and hopes his hobby continues to help others. Around the Smoke Rise neighborhood where he lives, Seretis offers his “services” to people who need help finding lost things. Every time he uses the metal detector at the nearby park, a group of kids tag along and describe the experience as “pirate treasure hunting.”

He calls his hobby “good, dirty fun.”

“I like the feeling of knowing someone is going to have a smile on their face because of something I did. And that’s what drives me. Just the email back with (Elaine) wearing her ring on her pinky, that smile on her face, that was it,” Seretis said.

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