Owner reunited with class ring lost in 1962

RENO -- In 1962, David McLaughlin went for a swim in Greece and lost a class ring.

Forty-seven years later, he was reunited with the ring with the help of a Texas man and the Internet.

Roger Cullen of San Antonio handed McLaughlin the ring when the two met for the first time Thursday in Reno.

"I'm just thrilled about it," McLaughlin told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

McLaughlin, 66, a retired Reno investor, said he was on a college trip to Greece when the ring slipped off in the sea.

It was the senior class ring he had received a year earlier at the Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad, Calif.

"We had a big search for it, but no luck," McLaughlin said.

Cullen was scuba diving in the same area in 1967 when he found the ring. It was engraved with the initials D.W.Mc.

Cullen, then a civilian working for the Air Force in Greece, put the ring in a jewelry box and forgot about it until a decade ago when his son, Steve, began searching for McLaughlin on the Internet.

Two months ago, Cullen found contact information on a representative for McLaughlin's class at the academy.

"I will cherish this," McLaughlin said. "As soon as I can get it fitted, I will wear it for the rest of my days."