Class ring returned after 28 years in ocean: Just meant to be
Some could call it a string of coincidences or maybe even serendipitous, but for Jeremy Kennedy, he’s calling it fate. “If it’s lost and comes back, it’s meant to be,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy now lives in Hillsboro, but he grew up in Santa Cruz, Calif., and graduated from Soquel High School in 1997. Like most graduates in the ‘90s, Kennedy saved up his money to purchase a class ring.
“I got the ring at the beginning of my senior year in 1997. However, after this photo, he didn’t have the ring for very long. “I was wearing it and I lost it in March of ‘97 at a beach in Capitola when I went surfing instead of going to school,” Kennedy said with a laugh.
He was leaving for the navy just a few weeks later, so he thought the ring would end up at the bottom of the ocean, never seeing the light of day again.
But as fate would have it, Kennedy was reunited with the ring last month, nearly 30 years after losing it.
The jewel was mailed to him by a California woman who happened to be in the right place at the right time.
Lisa Crouch grew up in Capitola, now lives just a few miles away from Rio Del Mar beach and often heads down to look for sea glass.
“I tend to just like dig through the rocks because that tends to be where you find the best pieces of sea glass … and I came across Jeremy’s ring,” Crouch said.
She went to social media to try to find the ring’s owner, hoping she’d have a good chance since the ring had his last name, where and when he went to high school and the position he played in football.
“I put it on social media and some of my acquaintances knew him,” Crouch said.
Within a matter of days, Crouch contacted Kennedy online and made a plan to get the ring back where it belonged.
As remarkable as it is, Crouch said what makes it even better is that she found the ring just 5 miles from where Kennedy lost it in 1997.
A story 28 years in the making, all thanks to a little bit of luck and a ring that refused to sink.
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