Lost and Found
Seton Hall > News & Events Friday, August 15, 2008
by: Bob Gilbert
When it
comes to returning missing Seton Hall graduation rings, there's a lot
of truth to the saying that what goes around, comes around. Take the
case of a ring lost at sea for nearly 30 years.
In June 2007, Ed Costello, an information technology manager for the
Long Island Rail Road, was finishing up a vacation along the isolated
shoreline of Shelter Island, N.Y. Despite teasing by his teenage
daughters, he had brought along a new metal detector and had been
scanning the area -- once home to 18th-century pirates -- for
"treasure."
"I'm one of those guys with sunglasses and a metal detector on the
beach that everybody laughs at," he jokes. Over the week, he had found
two silver spoons and a lot of change at various beaches, and a pair of
silver earrings on his rental property.
On the last Sunday morning of the vacation, he set out at 6 a.m. with a
cup of coffee in one hand and his $450 device in the other. He turned
on the detector while walking along a path toward the beach near his
cottage. The detector's alarm sounded, and Costello put down his coffee
cup. There, 200 feet back from the water's edge and seven inches down,
Costello dug up a Seton Hall ring. Inside were the initials "R.D.S."
"It was a 1953 ring and it was in such amazingly good shape," Costello
says. "At first, I thought my daughter might have had something to do
with it. And when I told my children, they were sure that I was
kidding."
The ring had slipped off the finger of Raymond Smith '53 back in 1978,
while he was swimming off a friend's boat about a hundred feet
offshore. Almost 30 years later, Smith was dumbfounded to take a call
from Seton Hall's Office of Alumni Relations, who wanted to know if --
as one of three 1953 graduates with the initials R.D.S. -- he had lost
his class ring.
But that's getting ahead of the story.
Reuniting graduates with their lost rings is pretty common for Alumni
Relations, according to Dan Nugent '03, associate director of the
group's regional programs.
A dozen or so get turned in every year.
Cost versus sentimental value
Seton Hall rings can sell today for about $500 to $1,500 each,
according to Nugent, whose own class ring was a gift. But their
sentimental value to alumni can make them priceless.
Jim Moran '70 can attest to that.
"Our house was broken into about two years ago," says Moran, who runs a
401(k) retirement account consulting business in Kent, Wash. His class
ring was taken from a jewelry drawer with other, more expensive items,
he says, but the ring "was just irreplaceable."
"In 1970, I probably paid about 80 bucks for it," says Moran. "Back
then, that was a lot of money. But the price, then or now, is kind of
irrelevant. The point is you simply cannot buy a 1970 Seton Hall ring."
A year and a half after the ring was taken, Moran says, "I got a phone
call out of the clear blue sky."
As Moran recalls the conversation, an officer of the King County
Sheriff's Office was on the line with a series of questions:
"Are you Jim Moran?"
"Yes."
"Did you graduate from Seton Hall University?"
"Yeah."
"I think we may have your class ring. Can you describe it to me?"
The police had traced him through Matthew Borowick '89/M.B.A. `94,
associate vice president for alumni and government relations, who
provided Moran's contact information. "They had broken up this
extensive theft ring," Moran says, and among a cache of stolen items
found in a motel room was the ring, which had his name and graduation
date inscribed upon it.
"It was great to get it back," Moran says, "I had kind of given up hope
on it."
A daughter's quest
By the time John Reynolds '59 got his ring back after nearly 20 years,
he had received a replacement from his family. "They surprised me one
birthday and bought me a new ring," he says. "Now I have two."
Reynolds thinks the original probably came off in cold weather when his
fingers shrank and the ring became loose. But "when one of the alumni
people called to tell me, it came right out of the blue. I was
overjoyed, because it is such a sentimental thing."
"I couldn't believe it, "Reynolds says, giving the patron saint of lost
and stolen articles some credit. "St. Anthony took his time."
Reynolds, a former associate director of development for the
University, later received a note from Maria Sandberg of Maywood, N.J.,
saying that his ring had turned up in her late father's possessions.
"My father passed away in February 2005; he was 83," Sandberg says. "He
was famous for picking up any stray, shiny object he found on the
ground, usually screws, washers, and so on. He also never threw
anything away. It's been very difficult for my mother and me to go
through his things; even after three years we've barely made a dent.
"One day last year I decided to tackle cleaning out a bowl that was
filled with receipts, some almost 10 years old. At the bottom of the
bowl was the ring. I have no idea how long he'd had it, or where he'd
found it," she says.
Sandberg says the ring "was in pretty good condition. But there was
dirt caked into the inscription, so I cleaned it with an old toothbrush
so I could better read the name." Sandberg emailed Alumni Relations
about her find and within days learned who the owner was.
Mailing the ring off, she "enclosed a note to Mr. Reynolds," she says,
"telling him how important it was to me to return the ring to him. My
parents were married in 1959, and he graduated that year, so I felt
very strongly that my father had found the ring for a reason, and it
was my responsibility to do whatever I could to see that it found its
way back to him. I got a lovely note back from him."
Sandberg also understands the emotional attachment of graduation rings.
"My father never attended college," she says. "He graduated from high
school in 1940, went to work, and joined the Army not long afterwards.
I have his high-school ring, which means the world to me, and I intend
to give it to my son when he gets old enough to appreciate it."
Reynolds, unlike some other alumni, can give you a very accurate dollar
value for his rings. The 10-karat one is worth $300 and the 14-karat
replacement is valued at $350; he had them appraised. At his class's
50th reunion next year, he will suggest that class members bequeath
their rings -- if family members do not want them -- to help fund
projects at Seton Hall.
A mystery of the deep
As for the ring found on Shelter Island, when Raymond Smith took the
call from Alumni Relations, he was amazed to be told it had been found.
"We had long given it up for lost," he says.
The story goes like this: One summer day in 1978, he was invited to go
sailing with a friend who had a house and boat on the island.
"We went out on that Saturday morning and spent the whole day," he
says. Coming in that evening, they took a swim in water that Smith
remembers "was cold as heck."
It was then that the ring probably came off.
"I didn't even realize I lost the ring at that time," he says. "It was
only that night when I took a shower to warm up that I noticed it was
gone."
Smith, who lives in Manchester Center, Vt., said he was the third
"R.D.S." from the Class of 1953 that Alumni Relations called. "The
first had passed away and the second had his ring," Smith was told. The
University then got permission to close the circle between Smith and
the beachcomber; Smith called Costello immediately "to thank him
profusely."
As to how currents and tides moved the ring so far inland for Costello
to find it, Smith has no idea. "It's a real mystery," he says.
The two got on famously once they started talking. "It was like I'd
known him forever," Costello says. "He was a nice gentleman. He even
sent me a gallon of Vermont maple syrup." Smith, who is scheduling a
luncheon for the two in New York soon, says, "He doesn't know it, but
I'm going to send him another gallon this year."
Costello is still amazed at how quickly the ring's owner was located.
He found the ring on a Sunday, he says, and by Tuesday he had "popped
it in the FedEx to send it up to Vermont."
It's all in a day's work for Alumni Relations, says Dan Nugent. The
staff works hard to return errant rings not only because of their value
as an expensive piece of jewelry, he explains, but also because of
their sentimental value.
"For many people, it's really a symbol of achievement; something to
remind them of all the hard work and preparation for life they received
in college."
And are there more rings being traced by Alumni Relations? "Right now,"
Nugent replies, "I am happy to say there are none."
Bob Gilbert is a writer based in Connecticut.
For more information please contact:
Editorial Department
973-378-2644
shuwriter@shu.edu
