REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE: Dyson had already accepted that the ring was probably gone for good, and she remembered exactly what had happened when she lost it | Pexels
Because detecting was one of his hobbies, and without those three things coming together, the ring could have remained underground indefinitely, jacques happened to have a metal detector. Dyson happened to return to her former home decades after moving away, and the current resident agreed to let Jacques search the yard.

Judi Dyson had been raking leaves at her home in Belgrade, Montana, about 50 years earlier when her graduation ring slipped away. In 2019, Dyson returned to the property with her daughter, Nancy, and Nancy’s partner, Jason Jacques. Jacques had a metal detector, asked the current resident for permission to search the yard, and about 15 minutes later, he found the ring. Dyson had received the ring for graduating with the Pickstown, South Dakota, class of 1960.
The company was told how the ring had disappeared and how it had eventually been found. She and her family searched through the bags of leaves but could not find it. By the time she returned to Belgrade, she was living in Rosemount, Minnesota, and the property belonged to someone else. The visit was initially about seeing her former home, but Jacques’ hobby changed the purpose of the trip. He scanned the yard with his detector with the current resident’s permission, and looked for metal objects beneath the soil. Jostens determined that the ring was still covered by its warranty and offered to clean and repair it before returning it to Dyson. That meant the story did not end with a metal detector pulling an old object from the ground, as Dyson expected that the ring could once again be worn after its restoration. The manufacturer planned to handle the cleaning and repairs before it returned to its original owner.


