ASHTABULA, Ohio — A class ring that washed up along the Lake Erie shoreline has been reunited with its owner, 44 years after it went missing.
The ring belonged to Raimo Kangus, a 1982 graduate of Harbor High School in Ashtabula, which closed in 2001 and was demolished in 2009.
Kangus lost the ring when he was a 17-year-old junior in 1981.
"I got the ring a little bit oversized cause I thought I would grow into it, and while I was down at the beach looking at a clear lake with some moonlight, I did a hang gesture like this, and that ring went flying off my finger into the lake," Kangus said. "Kerplunk. I heard it. I was devastated."
No amount of searching turned up the ring that evening, and a storm the following day ruined all hope of reuniting with it.
"My mom was furious – and my dad – he just ahh," Kangus said. "I thought I would never ever see this ring."
Fast forward to August 2025, and Cheryl Thompson-Morrow was walking along the shoreline when she spotted something unusual in the water, only about 200 yards away from where Kangus had lost it.
"I was walking and saw something in the water – and I thought it was a piece of metal I usually pick up, so I was surprised that it was a ring," Thompson-Morrow said.
Thompson-Morrow and her friends tracked down Kangus, leading to an emotional reunion. The ring had traveled only about 200 yards from where it was originally lost near Haywood Beach.
"It was fun finding it; It was more fun giving it back and seeing his face," Thompson-Morrow said.
Kangus was overwhelmed by the discovery.
"I'm flabbergasted and feel so blessed – that's why I'm calling this the miracle ring," Kangus said. "Who would have thought after all the time and all the changes along the lakeshore with the news someone had found my class ring after all that time?"
