A ring lost 26 years ago re-surfaced last week as a result of an article about pyrotechnician Bernie Toso and the Fourth of July fireworks display.
“I got a brand-new class ring from 1981,” Toso said in a recent telephone interview.
Toso lost the Emporia High School class ring shortly after he got it, and assumed that it had slipped off while he was riding his motorcycle.
A few days ago, he received a call from Lloyd D. Smith of Olpe.
“I used to do a lot of metal detecting and I ran across it,” Smith said. “I never located nobody who owned it.”
Smith took it home and kept it in a box.
“Then I read an article about him in the paper,” Smith said. Toso’s initials connected in his mind with the initials he recalled seeing on the ring, so he verified they were the same and gave Toso a call.
“He actually found it in a church yard that was adjacent to my house,” Toso said. “He read the article and put two and two together.”
The ring, with its blue stone, looked like new, Toso said.
Toso wasn’t surprised that the ring no longer fit his ring finger, but he quickly solved that problem.
“I’ve got it on my pinky right now,” he said.