IN SHORT: Maintenance worker at Cabot High makes surprise discovery in rafters.
By Joan McCoy
Leader staff writer
A class ring from Cabot High School, lost for almost four decades, has been returned to its owner.
A worker cleaning the beams at the high school gym to get the ceiling ready for painting found the 1972 class ring on July 12 and gave it to Jim Dalton, the assistant superintendent who is over construction in the district.
Dalton gave the information he had about the ring to Mike Polston, curator of the Cabot Schools Museum. Using a 1972 yearbook and the initials engraved in the ring, “JHW,” Polston narrowed the possible owners to two, Johnny Weatherly and Jack Wylie.
Since Wylie knew how the ring came to rest on the beam, he was deemed the owner and the ring was returned to him Wednesday.
Wylie said during a phone interview Thursday that he had worn the ring only about six months when he gave it to a high school girlfriend, who lost it in the gym while she was playing volleyball.
“In the midst of play, it came off her finger and she couldn’t find it anywhere,” Wylie said. “I suspected that was probably where it was, but the ceiling was 30 to 40 feet high.”
Wylie, a central office technician for CenturyLink, could not get away from work Wednesday, so his wife Toni, a former Cabot teacher, picked the ring up and posed for a picture with Dalton.
Now the ring, like most high school rings, is in a jewelry box.
“I won’t even fit on my pinky,” Wylie said.
But he said he is grateful that so many people went to so much trouble to return it.
“I’m very appreciative of the individual who returned it to Mr. Dalton and very appreciative of Mr. Dalton taking the trouble to make sure I got it back,” Wylie said.
