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Fellowship of a returned ring

A local high school ring was lost in the gulf more than 20 years ago. It returned Monday through the caring of an Indiana man.

By JON WILSON
Published August 27, 2005

	[Times photo: Bill Serne]
	Holding the one true Dixie Hollins class ring he lost in St. Pete Beach surf more than 20 years ago, Kevin Heine is delighted with its return.

ST. PETERSBURG - Alan Sutliff was an 8-year-old treasure hunter paddling off St. Pete Beach in 1983 when a glimmering object winked at him from the Gulf of Mexico floor.

Down Sutliff plunged, retrieving what turned out to be a Dixie Hollins High School class ring. Inscribed on the band were the initials KEH and the name "Kevin."

Visiting from Valparaiso, Ind., Sutliff and his family didn't know how to find the high school or trace the ring's owner. The youngster took home the blue-stone artifact and put it away.

Until Aug. 16.

That was when Sutliff, now 30, rediscovered the ring and decided to start searching for its owner. It took only a few days to reconnect the band to its owner, Kevin Heine.

Heine said he lost the ring in 1982, apparently not far from where Sutliff found it.

On Tuesday, he opened a package from Sutliff and pulled out the ring he and his mother, Betty Heine, had shopped for during the summer of 1982.

"To be honest, I almost feel like I won the lottery," Heine said. "I can't describe the feeling it is to have it on again."

Now 39, Heine said he lost the ring a few weeks after he and his mother paid about $150 for it at a jewelry store. He and some friends were roughhousing on a raft 30 feet offshore in chest-high gulf water. Someone grabbed Heine by the finger, and off came the ring, which Heine said he had worn for just a few weeks.

"We searched two or three hours," said the Lealman resident.

Sutliff, prowling for bottle caps, coins and shells, found the ring a year later about 30 feet offshore, in chest-high water.

"For an 8-year-old, it was pretty exciting stuff," said Sutliff. "Up here (in Indiana), finding something like that was like being a pirate."

Finding the ring was a very long shot, said a scientist who specializes in tides and the movement of objects in water.

Robert Weisberg, a marine science professor at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, said St. Pete Beach is active in terms of beach erosion, beach renourishment projects and sediment movement - meaning it's easy for items to get covered up or to travel.

Weisberg said a year's passage between the loss and the discovery is conceivable. Objects "could get covered, they could get uncovered," he said. But he added, "It doesn't make sense to me."

Sutliff, who is a project engineer for a steel mill, said as a youngster he kept the ring on his dresser for a while, then put it in a jewelry box his grandfather made and and didn't think much more about it.

When he found it again a couple of weeks ago, he asked his wife, Kristi, to do an Internet search.

It didn't take long to find Dixie Hollins High School. Sutliff e-mailed Mike Bohnet, the principal, who forwarded the message to alumni president Sherry Brock.

Going on the name and initials inscribed on the ring, and using e-mails, early 1980s yearbooks and the phone book, Brock found Heine in a few hours and relayed the news. Heine and Sutliff talked Sunday, and Sutliff sent the ring via overnight service on Monday.

"He's a great guy, and I'm glad we could get that and stir up some good memories for him," Sutliff said.

Sutliff also sent a warm letter that Heine said carried an emotional impact almost as great as getting back the ring.

"Please understand that we are not looking for any reward and that was not our intention," Sutliff wrote. "Making someone smile, sharing an exciting tale and returning what was lost is reward enough."

[Last modified August 27, 2005, 01:13:13]