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RICHFIELD — It's the case of the missing gold college ring. A 70-year-old mystery that has now been solved in the town of Richfield.
"I pulled it out and I started whooping and hollering!" said Kelly Stewart, who found the ring. Finding the ring was just the beginning of months and months of trying to track down the owner.
Stewart loves using his metal detector to find treasure. He's been doing it for 50 years and over those years he's gathered cabinets full of little buried treasures.
Nothing compared to what he found in February of 2019 just a few blocks from his home, in the yard of an abandoned house.
A gold 10 karat Colorado School of Mines class ring from 1943. It was still in mint condition. The only clue of its owner was the initials inside the ring.
70yr mystery of this missing gold college ring solved in the small central Utah town of Richfield. How it all unfolded @KSL5TV at 5 & 6:30 pic.twitter.com/LQtUV8uNRF
— Dan Rascon (@TVDanRascon) November 22, 2021
"Inside the band right here is his initials, R.W.D. That's all it had," said Stewart to KSL as he showed the ring.
Stewart put on his detective hat and went to work. For starters, he got a 1943 Colorado School of Mines yearbook off eBay. In his first major clue, he found a young man by the name of Richard William Deneke.
Then through months of web searches and postings, Kelly just recently found that Deneke was still alive and at a nursing home in Georgia.
Deneke will be turning 100 years old in just a few months. KSL spoke to him by phone in Stewart's living room in Richfield.
"Thank you very much," said Deneke to Stewart, who still remembers losing the ring sometime in the late 1940s while he was at a home in Richfield.
He said he lived in Richfield for a short time because the company he worked for was close by. "I think it's amazing."
Stewart is now planning to ship the ring to Deneke. He said the real joy of finding treasures is when you are able to actually find the owners.
"If I can find something with a person's name on it, I'm in heaven," said Stewart.
