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High school ring comes full circle: Success after 10 year quest Something told Dave Grigsby that there was something very special about that Cumberland High School class ring he bought in a London flea market, 10 years ago. He bought it, for a single reason: To return it to its owner, known only to him by his/her initials, "P.D.C." engraved on the ring, and the class year, 1975. Saturday, June 22, 2013, his quest was over, when he returned the ring - polished and shined like new by Columbia jeweler Charles Grimsley - to the rightful owner's daughter, whose mother, the class salutatorian, died two months after her baby girl was born. Coach Grigsby still has a few questions he hopes someone will step forward and answer, but, he says, some answers may never come, 'Only God knows the rings full journey, as He guided it along its completed circle. Click on headline for the fascinating full story with photo(s) By Dave Grigsby About 10 years ago my wife and I were walking through the flea market set up at the Laurel County Homecoming. While Karen stopped at a table I fumbled through a box of trinkets. The box was a mix of old costume jewelry, broaches, necklaces and so forth when a pink stone caught my eye. It was a tiny class ring. I picked it up and discovered it was from Cumberland High School in Kentucky and marked '75. The initials engraved inside the ring read P.D.C. At that moment I realized this was no display or sample ring, but was someone's actual class ring. The initials had really humanized the ring for me and I decided I wanted to find its owner and return it. So having never bought a piece of jewelry of any kind before or since (save my wife's wedding ring), I purchased the ring for $10 and went home to search the internet for its owner. He thought he'd find owner in an afternoon. But he was mistaken Despite dozens of searches for all things related to the High School I could find no one who might have a yearbook from the class of '75 at Cumberland High School. I called the library and the school system in Cumberland and Harlan County. but nobody could help. Requests for names of any faculty from that era went unanswered, and sites like Classmates.com and others were only just starting, with few, if any members. For awhile the puzzle appeared unsolvable with available clues Defeated, I put the ring down in hopes that I might have better luck in a few months as new information appeared on the internet. I placed the ring on my keychain for a reminder to keep trying on occasion, and so that it would never again end up in an abandoned box of jewelry. Months stretched into years as every few months I would notice the ring on my keychain and jump on the internet to try again. Ten years into the search, he got a break, on Facebook This past week, 10 years into this search, I got a break. I found a Facebook page for the Cumberland High School group. Excited about that, I sent a Join Group request and waited. But I was declined again and again. I would later learn that the group had suffered from a lot of spam and had began researching all requests to join. With no connection to the school listed on my own Facebook page they had denied me. He spotted another Grigsby But I looked over the members' names I spotted another Grigsby. It turned out to be the wife of my late uncle who I had not seen since I was very young. I sent her a message with the story of my search and asked her to post to the group asking if anyone had a 1975 yearbook, and if they could look up the initials. Within hours another member posted that those initials could only belong to one person, Pam Diane Collins, salutatorian of the '75 class. This person called Pam's sister and it was confirmed, we had found the ring's owner. Turns out Pam had died 18 years earlier of a heart attack, only 2 months after giving birth to her second daughter, Shelby. Pam was 38 at that time. Shelby was living with Pam's sister, Felicia Shelby was living with Pam's sister Felicia and had just graduated High School. Arrangements were made to meet with the family this past Saturday in London, KY, half-way between Harlan and Adair, and incidentally, where the ring had been found. Charles Grimsley was kind enough to clean and polish the ring for its return. There were hugs exchanged, with tears, in meeting at Starbucks We met at Starbucks and exchanged hugs and tears and I told the family the story of finding the ring and the search for its owner. I gave the ring to Shelby, who is the same age her mother was when she first got her class ring in 1975. She plans to wear it on a necklace. Pam's sister Felicia was in tears as she looked at the ring for the first time in decades. Nobody knows how the ring was lost, or its journey Perhaps it was lost much earlier at their grandparents' farm one summer in London, or simply lost, found by a stranger and sold to a vendor for change. There is still hope that a vendor at the flea market might come forward after seeing the story with more information about selling a class ring a decade ago, but those chances are slim. Only God knows the rings full journey, as He guided it along its completed circle. - Dave Grigsby This story was posted on 2013-06-23 13:14:05
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