![\"Georgia](\"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/LostFound2.jpg\")
When Patrick J. Smith (\u201983) lost his Georgia Southern College class ring 30 years ago on a beach in Florida, he never thought he would see it again. But an odd turn of events proved him wrong and landed the ring back in his possession this year.<\/p>\n
It all began when Randi Sykora-McCurdy, administrative assistant in the Jack N. Averitt College of Graduate Studies, received a letter from Florida resident Sylvia Sanchez claiming to have found a class ring with the Georgia Southern logo and the name \u201cPatrick J. Smith\u201d inscribed on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe usually don\u2019t get requests like that, but I called the registrar\u2019s office to see if I could find any information,\u201d she said. \u201cOddly enough, there was only one \u2018Patrick J. Smith\u2019 who had graduated from here and it ended up being him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sykora-McCurdy called Smith and gave him the information for the woman who\u2019d found the ring. Smith, a supervisory special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, initially envisioned Sanchez to be wearing a headset and carrying a metal detector and a shovel looking for objects, but he soon discovered that wasn\u2019t the case at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I spoke to Sylvia, she told me she was running one day on the beach near Palm Coast, Fla. She stopped, looked down and saw a gold ring lying on the sand next to a rock. Sylvia told me the ring was slightly scratched, but the school emblem and the engraving on the inside were still legible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith said Sanchez didn\u2019t want a reward, but simply wanted to get the ring back to its rightful owner. Smith is grateful to Sykora-McCurdy, who was happy to have played a small role in the reunion. \u201cIt makes me feel very good to know that I could help in some way. This was such a unique story, and I wanted to see how it would all pan out,\u201d Sykora-McCurdy said.<\/p>\n
Even more amazing? The ring still fits. Smith said he wears it regularly and was surprised at its condition after all these years.\u201cTo lay in the sand, surf, salt and sea for that length of time and still be recognizable is unbelievable,\u201d he said. \u201cDoing the right thing and reuniting me with my ring, I just think that\u2019s pretty darn cool.\u201d \u2013 Crissie Elrick<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Class Ring Returned After 30 Years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4577,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[42],"class_list":["post-1345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","tag-fall-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}