Last of three rings returned

Chuck Sailor has fully solved his classring puzzle.

For more than a year, the Northeast Side resident had been trying to reunite three class rings with their owners. Sailor found them while cleaning his sister’s house when she moved into an assisted-living facility.

Sailor said the rings were in a container full of items he believes his brother-in-law collected decades ago while using a metal detector.

Sailor found two of the owners, Barry Hinkle of South High School (Class of 1969) and Joy Lunsford of Mount Vernon High School (Class of 1963). Both had their initials engraved on the rings.

But the third ring — South High Class of 1959 — had no initials.

After reading a Dispatch story about Sailor returning Lunsford’s ring, Larry Reichle contacted Sailor.

“I saw that (story), and I thought, 'Oh, that could be it,'" said Reichle, 78, who lives in Grove City.

Reichle said that in 1959, he gave his ring to a girl sitting at his lunch table "just to look at," but forgot about it until later. When he asked for the ring back, she said her boyfriend had seen it, taken it and thrown it out a car window.

“I often wondered where it ended up,” he said.

Sailor went to Reichle’s house on Wednesday, and the ring fit Reichle’s finger perfectly.

His mission complete, Sailor is satisfied.

“This has been a blast,” he said.

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