Long-lost ring’s return yields lessons for life

Jeffrey Libby

Wednesday, May 15, 2002 | 8:46 a.m.

During a Sunday gathering at the sprawling Canyon Ridge Christian Church, Pastor Jim Evans holds up his high school graduation ring for a classroom of single Christians.

Those in the crowd of about 70 -- dressed in spring dresses and collared short-sleeve shirts -- roar with laughter when Evans, 50, tells them he lost the ring shortly after he graduated in the summer of 1969.

But many are contemporaries of Evans, and they whistle in awe when he tells them that the ring had been lost for 33 years, buried in the ground. And now -- as of a couple of weeks ago -- is found.

A truck driver home for the weekend unearthed Evans' ring while pulling up a cement walkway. It was buried in about four inches of soil on the side lawn of Evans' childhood home in Felton, Pa. -- a town that for three decades has remained surrounded by fields of corn and grain and held steady at a population of about 600.

"It's a small town, so it's a big deal when someone finds a ring. The hamster races were called off that day," Evans joked.

The return of the ring has led to a succession of lessons for Evans' Sunday Bible reading group.

Most lessons return to the theme of the lord of all rings -- the wedding ring -- because for many in the crowd, the first go-round at marriage ended in failure. If the ring itself wasn't lost, everything it symbolized was.

But even for married folk such as Evans there is ample room for "take-aways," as he calls small gems of wisdom.

"One thing is, you're never really that far from your past. You never know when something is going to bring up all the things that used to be, good and bad," Evans said.

"And if you're a spiritual person, you know that with God all things are possible. Even if things aren't that great, it gives you that sense of serendipity, that you can live life expecting that something fresh and wonderful is going to happen."

Jim's mother Mary Lou Evans, who lives in York, Pa., about 13 miles from Felton, said she was amazed that in an area prone to flooding the ring hadn't been washed away.

"In 1972 we had a flood, Hurricane Agnes," Mrs. Evans said. "The back yard was completely under water, three or four feet, and the basement flooded up to the kitchen door."

The diligence of Jami Jackson, wife of trucker Matt Jackson, also impressed Mrs. Evans.

"She went through a lot of trouble to find us," Mrs. Evans said. "These days you don't find many people do that any more."

After being found, the ring sat for two weeks on a shelf with the Jacksons' house keys while Jami found time to track down a 1969 graduate of Red Lion Area High School with the initials "JCE."

Leafing through an old yearbook at the school with two of her three young kids in tow, she found that James Clifford Evans was the only student of 240 with those initials.

Through a former football coach, Jami reached a relative of Evans who knew his mother's phone number. Eventually the two women met at the old house in Felton and after a short conversation about Red Lion, the ring was returned.

For Jami, there was never any question that she would try to return the ring.

"How often do you find something that's been in the ground for 30 years and find exactly who it belongs to and get it back to them?" she said.

For Evans, a consultant who finds jobs for handicapped clients, the return of the ring has also brought private comforts.

"I don't have my varsity jacket. I don't have my senior yearbook and I don't have any pictures from that era," he said. "But I learned a lot in those years, small town values, and the ring symbolizes that." You never know when something is going to bring up all the things that used to be, good and bad."