He is the owner of Red Line Landscapes and it was raining cats and dogs all week. He and his fiancée Mindy Stewart had plans to do a project in their business Red Line Motor Sports Media Company until she had a health scare. And on top of that it seemed like the whole world was having a bad week too.
When he got a Facebook message from a stranger he figured it was some sort of hoax, but something made him double check it.
“Is this you?” the message asked. A man had found a 1992 Tecumseh High School class ring in the grass at a gambling casino and the name “Jerry Meddock” was written inside it in script.
Attached was an image of the ring sitting on an index card.
Jerry opened the attachment and could not believe what he saw. It was indeed a photo of his 1992 class ring.
The finder sent additional photos of each side of the ring which confirmed it.
“It looked as flawless like the day I took it off and set it on the bleachers at the old Oscar T. Hawk Building. I’d only had it for a month or two,” said Jerry. “We were playing badminton and I took it off to play.”
He’d forgotten the ring when the game was over and returned a bit later to the bleachers to discover it was missing.
He said he looked underneath the bleachers and checked lost and found. He even checked with the ring maker which had a “Lost and Found” department.
But the ring was gone. He graduated soon after that and moved on with his life.
Thirty years later, out of the blue, during a horrible week, a man in Dayton sent word that he had found the ring.
Not wanting to delay, Jerry got directions to where the man lived, and drove there immediately.
Harlan Davis was standing outside with his friends on the street in front of his apartment.
Jerry said he knew it was Harlan because he had such a big smile on his face. The men with Harlan were also excited that they had found Jerry.
“I videotaped it all,” said Jerry.
Harlan told him that he has walking across the lawn at the casino and saw the ring just sitting there like it had just been dropped. He searched Jerry Meddock’s name on the Internet and found Jerry’s Facebook account.
“He never asked me for a dime,” said Jerry, who explained that Harlan just seemed happy knowing that he had found the owner. However, Jerry voluntarily gave Harlan a proper finder’s fee to show his appreciation.
Jerry took the ring home and shared his story first on his classmates’ page since they are planning their 30th anniversary. He was amazed at how many had stories about losing their class rings. Some were found and others are still missing.
According to Jerry, more than one friend has told him that the ring was returned because Jerry had done so many good things for others over the years.
Jerry does believe that the finding of the class ring is something positive that he wants to share with the world.
The message to everyone, he said, is to never give up hope. Good things are coming.
However, one of Jerry’s regrets about his 1992 class ring was that he didn’t even have it long enough in high school to give it to a girlfriend to wear.
Now that he has the ring in his possession again, he wasted no time giving it to his fiancée with these words:
“You are going to have to get yourself some yarn.”
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