If the honest answer is “I have no idea,” you are in good company. Jim Burkhart of Goddard, Kansas, went about 53 years without his. He always knew how he lost it, though. He threw it at his future wife.
One Snowball, One Ring
Jim got his ring as a junior at Kinsley High School, class of 1973. “When I went to town or events, I always had my ring on,” he told the television station KWCH.
That year he enrolled at Dodge City Community College, where he played football. A Kinsley classmate, Marilyn Crockett, enrolled too, working toward a secretarial certificate. The two had started dating the summer after their senior year.
One snowy day in 1973, walking across campus with Marilyn, Jim picked up a snowball and threw it at her. He threw it left-handed. He told KWCH he did not want to hurt her.
According to the college, his left hand was also where he wore the ring, because of a childhood injury to his right. You can guess the rest.
“She doesn’t remember if I hit her,” Jim said in the college’s account. “I probably did. I had pretty good aim.”
The two of them went back and looked a couple of times. They never found it.
Fifty Years of Bringing It Up
Life went on. Jim transferred to what is now Emporia State University, and he and Marilyn married in January 1976. He spent 37 years in Kansas schools as a teacher, coach, and administrator, and Marilyn did secretarial work at many of the same schools.
The lost ring became a family story, told and retold. Marilyn made sure of that.
“Your ring’s still got to be there,” she told KWCH, and she said so every time they passed the campus. Jim told the college that whenever they were in Dodge City, she wanted to stop by the school and check the lost and found.
They talked about it yet again on a visit to Dodge City this summer. One week later, the ring turned up.
What Two Groundskeepers Did Next
On August 7, Grounds Supervisor Daemian Serna and maintenance worker Craig Mellecker were finishing a job on the college quad. They had been replacing valves on the underground irrigation system. As they began filling in the dirt, Serna noticed something shiny.
He thought it was a hose clamp. It was a ring. He cleaned it off and found the name of Kinsley High School, a little coyote, the year 1973, and two initials: J and B.
“Usually, I just find old soda cans or trash in the dirt,” Serna said.
By his account, Mellecker looked over and said, “Oh, somebody’s going to want that.”
Here is the part worth noticing. When the job was done, the two men went back to the maintenance shop, and Mellecker called Kinsley High School. Within an hour, Serna said, he had a name and a story.
The Burkharts were on their way to Tulsa, Oklahoma, when the call came.
Does It Still Fit?
Jim got the ring back on August 17, on a visit to the campus.
“When we took him down to the quad, he went exactly where he remembered, and it was practically right there where we found it,” Serna said.
And yes, it still fits, KWCH reports. “It’s really cleaned up nice, looks brand new,” Jim said. “Actually, of course, it never got worn.”
Today the Burkharts are retired in Goddard, with two daughters and four grandchildren. Marilyn told the college she planned to take the ring to a jewelry store for a cleaning, and she had her opening line ready: “You’re not going to believe this!”
Two things brought that ring home. One person kept asking about it for half a century, and another picked up the phone the same day it came out of the dirt.
If yours is in a drawer, it might be worth a look tonight. If it is not, keep bringing it up.
