Twice a week Robert “Bobby” Elliott sings at the Lake City – Scranton Health Care Center. He also helps support the Florence County Toys for Tots program each year.
But mostly, the Marine veteran likes to roam yard sales looking for interesting items that catch his eye.
“We go around early on Saturday mornings a lot of times to the yard sales,” said Elliott. “When he’s not busy [singing] he loves yard sales,” said his wife, Vera Elliott.
During a recent yard sale exploration one small object caught Bobby’s eye.
“One Saturday I picked up a class ring,” he said. “It was in good shape. I looked at it and the guy said he’d take four dollars for it, so I bought it.”
“Originally I thought ‘I can get $25 dollars for this ring’,” said Elliott who brought the dirt-encrusted ring home and cleaned it up.
“It looked just like new,” Elliott said and, realizing that the ring probably meant something to the original owner, Elliott decided he wanted to try and return it.
So that Monday, armed with a school name, the initials and last name of the original owner and the name of the company that made the ring, the Elliotts began their search for it’s owner.
The ring had the year 1984 and a mascot that looked like a Trojan on one side and band symbols on the other. At first, the couple thought the ring belonged to someone in York County, S.C. But their search of the county proved fruitless and they decided to try calling the maker’s of the ring.
“They probably got records of every class ring they ever made,” Elliott said.
The company was able to tell Elliott the correct school name for the ring – one not in South Carolina but Pennsylvania.
“So we called the high school and the lady said ‘yes, that names sounds familiar and I think I can find that person’,” said Elliott. The following day “that lady from the school called back and said ‘I found the person.’”
A little later the wife of the owner called and told Elliott they had been living in Florence until just six months ago when they moved to Virginia.
The owner “said the ring was very sentimental,” said Elliott’s wife, Vera Elliott.
“So I sent him the ring,” said Elliott.
The owner sent the Elliott’s a thank you note saying “I want to let you know that your efforts to contact me and get my high school class ring back to me were honorable and appreciated. The ring has sentimental value and I can only imagine the many individuals that would not have gone through the efforts you did.”
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