Class ring, memories recovered 51 years later

It was 1957. Eisenhower was president, Elvis Presley was taking the nation by storm, and David Perry — now 77 and living in Maple Valley — had just lost his gold college class ring, somewhere off the coast of Fort Lauderdale.

He'd been water skiing when it disappeared. Gone for good, he'd thought.

Fifty-one years later, Perry's ring is back.

"It's pretty unlikely. I can't believe it's found," said Perry, a retired U.S. Navy reservist and Boeing engineer who has lived in the Seattle area with his wife since 1982. "I remember the day I lost it. I always treasured that ring."

The ring's finders — or "treasure hunters," as they call themselves — are Jorge Balmori, 54, and his son, Jorge Jr., 20, of Davies, Fla.

They were treasure hunting Monday in Key Biscayne, about 100 feet from the shore, when their underwater metal detector began to beep.

"We dove down there and started digging," said Balmori, a social-studies teacher. "It was about 7 feet underwater and buried in a foot of sand. We just kept diving."

When they brought it to the surface, Perry's Georgia Tech 1952 class ring was in perfect condition. His initials, D. L. Perry, were inscribed on the inside, along with insignia for his fraternity, Sigma Chi.

Wednesday, the elder Balmori asked his friend, fellow social-studies teacher Dennis Rodrigues, to try to find the owner online. Rodrigues contacted the national chapter of Sigma Chi, and by dinner time, Balmori had received a phone call at home. It was Perry.

A Sigma Chi official had called him, told him the story and gave him Balmori's phone number.

"Those guys went through all this trouble to find me. Who would bother?" Perry said.

Balmori said he's happy to be able to help return something so valuable; the ring will be back on Perry's finger soon.

"It wasn't the gold that made it worth something," he said. "It was the memories of everything that ring represented. Think of all that's happened since 1957."

Haley Edwards: 206-464-2745 or hedwards@seattletimes.com