Class ring finally makes its journey home

For most people, a class ring serves as a tangible reminder of their journey through high school’s short, yet memorable years.

However, for Arkansas resident Helen Ball, that tangible reminder had all but turned into a faint memory after she misplaced her 1968 Magnet Cove High School ring nearly four decades ago.

That is until Ball’s ring turned up in an Auburn home hundreds of miles away in December 2009.

On the weekend of Thanksgiving 2009, Cindy Belcher Schell, 56, and her siblings were going through their mother’s jewelry boxes at the request of their father, James Belcher. Schell’s mother, Mary Belcher, passed away in August 2008.

That’s when Schell said her sister, Martha Jean Starr, of Auburn, happened upon a 1968 Magnet Cove High School ring among her mother’s jewelry.

“The ring was gold with a panther head on one side and a stone that appeared to be dark green,” Schell, a native of Auburn said. “None of us had ever heard of Magnet Cove High School.”

A closer look at the ring revealed the initials “H.R.S.” on the inside of the ring.

“I suggested that perhaps it belonged to extended family, since mother’s maiden name was Riley,” Schell said. “We agreed that I would take the ring and contact my aunt in Newton, Ala. to see if perhaps she had any knowledge of the ring.”

However Schell decided to search for information about MCHS via the Internet and located contact information for the Malvern, Ark. school’s principal, Brad Sullivan.

Sullivan, who had access to a 1968 MCHS yearbook, was unable to locate anyone from that year’s class with the initials “H.R.S.”

That’s when Schell said Sullivan contacted a teacher assistant whose mother was a 1968 MCHS alum.

“When the young lady called her mother with the initials, she immediately knew that the ring belonged to her close friend Helen Ruth Smoak Ball,” Schell said.

Sullivan then contacted Schell with contact information for Ball. Schell then obtained Ball’s mailing address and sent the ring back to her on Dec. 3, 2009.

While the path reuniting Ball’s class ring with her can be clearly defined, exactly how Schell’s mother came into possession of it is something both families can only speculate on since neither Schell’s mother had never been to Arkansas and Ball reportedly has never traveled to Alabama according to Schell.

“Sullivan suggested that there was a Reynolds Aluminum factory near where Ball thought she may have lost the ring,” said Schell, who now resides in Hazlehurst, Ga. “There was also a Reynolds Aluminum factory in Scottsboro, AL that some of the employees used to transfer back and forth to.”

“Perhaps one of the workers found it only to lose it in Alabama,” Schell wonders.

Schell’s father, who owned and operated Belcher Farms in Auburn, had contract egg producers from all over the state routinely visiting the facility.

“Perhaps one of them found the ring and gave it to our mother,” Schell said. “We really don’t know.”

What Schell is sure about is that a higher power had a hand in reuniting the class ring with its owner after so many years.

On the same Thanksgiving weekend that Schell and her father and siblings discovered Ball’s class ring, Ball herself had read a story in her local newspaper about a class ring being returned to someone after two years and thought of her own then lost ring according to Schell.

“The fact that her desire for the ring and our discovery of it happened the same weekend has to be the work of the Lord,” Schell said. “It gave us great satisfaction to be a part of an event that brought such joy to Ms. Ball, especially during the holiday season.”