PRESCOTT, Ariz. — Although living in distant corners of the country, three strangers recently became connected by one small item: a high school class ring.
It did not happen easily, however. The route that brought Louisiana resident Joseph Malbrough's lost ring back to him traversed numerous states, and more than three decades.
Ultimately, it culminated with a Prescott man returning the keepsake to a man he had never met, more than 27 years after he found it.
For his perseverance and honesty, Keith Beesmer, a 13-year resident of Prescott, received a civilian commendation this past week from the Prescott Police Department.
Prescott Police Chief Mike Kabbel presented the award to Beesmer at a City Council meeting, commending the "good Samaritan" for his "kindness, diligence, and honesty."
Beesmer, 46, said the opportunity to get the ring back to its rightful owner satisfied a long-held desire to solve a mystery.
As an Irvine, Calif., teenager in the early 1980s, Beesmer said he and his friends had traveled to the nearby Santiago Peak to do some off-roading in their trucks.
There, he came across a shiny class ring lying in the dirt. It was from the year 1976 and was inscribed with a school Beesmer had never heard of — Terrebonne High School.
"We didn't have the Internet in those days," Beesmer said, noting that he had no way of finding the high school, let alone the person who lost the ring.
He held onto the ring, though, with the hazy hopes of getting it back to its owner. "I don't think I thought a whole lot about it," Beesmer says now. "I just kept it."
He recalls running across the ring in his belongings from time to time, which always served to renew his interest. Finally, a few years back, Beesmer did some online research and learned that Terrebonne High School was located in Louisiana.
After contacting the school, he was hopeful that he would get some help in tracking down the owner, but that lead went nowhere.
Later, while trying to research the maker of the ring online, Beesmer ran across a website that sounded promising, classringfinder.com.
He posted the details of the lost ring on the site, along with some photos, and waited for results.
This time, his efforts paid off. Within days, another volunteer sleuth across the country was on the case. Pennsylvania resident Karen Leonardi spotted Beesmer's posting and got to work on identifying the owner.
"I act as a liaison," Leonardi said in a telephone interview from her Pringle, Penn., home.
As a member of a metal-detecting club, Leonardi said she often runs across lost items. Because of her interest in reuniting owners with their lost belongings, Leonardi said she has earned the nickname, "detective of keepsakes."
Through Facebook, Leonardi found graduates of Terrebonne High School. She quickly cross-referenced the graduation year (1976) with the initials on the found ring (JFM).
"The first name and last name matched," Leonardi said of the Facebook entry for Malbrough.
She took a chance and sent a message to Malbrough, asking him if he had lost a class ring.
Back in Louisiana, Malbrough had been missing his class ring for more than three decades.
"Very much so — several times, I thought I would go buy another one," Malbrough, 52, said of the ring he had lost soon after his high school graduation.
In fact, just weeks before he got the Facebook message from Leonardi, Malbrough said he had talked with his girlfriend about replacing the ring.
"It was more or less sentimental stuff," Malbrough said in a telephone interview. "You spend 12 years in school, and then it's over."
After graduation, Malbrough had joined the U.S. Army, and ended up at Fort Ord, Calif.
While there, he said, "I met a guy from Ventura, and we went down to his parents' place." During a trip to Santiago Peak, Malbrough said he and his friends got into a snowball fight.
Sometime during the fight, his class ring slipped off his finger. Although Malbrough and his friends searched for hours, they could not find the ring.
There on the mountainside, the ring rested for years, before Beesmer found it in 1983.
After Leonardi connected the loose ends, Malbrough called Beesmer to inquire about the ring. They soon became convinced that the ring was, indeed, Malbrough's, and Beesmer sent the ring on to Louisiana in January.
Although a newspaper article in Louisiana made the story known in Malbrough's hometown, Leonardi said, "I really wanted Keith to get some recognition."
While she has helped to reunite 15 to 20 people with their lost rings, Leonardi said, "This was such a unique story. He (Beesmer) hung onto the ring for a long time. He really is a 'good Samaritan.'"
That belief prompted her to write a letter to Prescott Mayor Marlin Kuykendall, seeking acknowledgment for Beesmer — a contact that led to the police commendation.
"I'm glad we do have honest people out there," Malbrough said of Beesmer. "He deserved that, plus some, in my eyes."
Malbrough estimates the ring's value at $600 to $1,000. After having it re-sized, he said he wears it regularly.
Even though the three residents from Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana still have never met, they have become friends on Facebook, and keep in regular contact.
Information from: The Daily Courier, http://www.dcourier.com