Urbana woman’s high school class ring stars in lost-and-found story
If a high school class ring could talk, Polly Long’s would regale her with the story of its adventures halfway across the world, from North America to South America to Europe and back home -- if it doesn’t get lost a third time.
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The Urbana High School grad has lost the keepsake twice since she graduated as Polly Toomire in 1978.
“So I took my birthstone, which is Amethyst for February, and put that starburst in it, so it was pretty different ring at the time,” she told News Center 7′s Haley Kosik.
Toomire Long’s boyfriend was from West-Liberty Salem. She gave him her class ring as a love token.
He wore it on his pinkie, she recalled, “And . . . about right here, yeah, and we were together one night at the local hangout in town, which was the Pizza Hut at the time, and he lost it.”
Toomire Long said she asked him to buy her a new ring -- the one he lost cost about $400.
He bought her a duplicate, which arrived several months later.
Then, during a work shift at Clancy’s Hamburgers, she said, someone showed up wearing what looked like the ring her beau said he lost.
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“I had my ring on, standing at the counter taking a girl’s order. Both of our hands met on the counter and both of our rings were the same.
“And I said, ‘oh my gosh. Our rings are the same.’ "
“And she said, ‘Oh I know, my boyfriend used to work at Pizza Hut and he found it and gave it to me.’ "
“And I said, ‘does that have Polly Toomire?’ "
“And she looked at me, like startled.”
“I said, ‘that’s my ring!’ "
“So she gave it to me.”
Fast-forward to Toomire Long’s senior year. The International Rotary Club sent Stella Gaviria, an exchange student from Bogota, Colombia, to live with Toomire Long’s family. The two became good friends.
“And so she graduated with us. Well, I gave [the class ring] to her for her high school graduation and she just cried and cried and cried.”
And that was the last Toomire Long thought she would see of Gaviria and the ring.
That was until a message arrived Oct. 8. It was from Barcelona, Spain, from an Adrian White.
“He said, ‘Hi, did you lose your high school class ring? It says Polly Toomire, Urbana High School.’ "
The man told her he found it on the ground at a festival in Barcelona.
“And how in this big, huge world, how tiny this is and how this was found so far away,” Toomire Long said. “Unbelievable . . . and Colombia and Spain are like 5,000 miles apart, so if this ring could talk!”
Toomire Long has been trying to find Gaviria on social media, to learn how the ring ended up in Spain.
White, who found the keepsake, said he plans to mail it to Toomire Long this weekend.
