Published: September 27, 2006
A class ring ranks high on the list of prized possessions for a high school student, so when Clay Couey lost his in the summer of 1992 he was heartbroken.
Whether gold or silver, the stone and engraving make class rings an important symbol for guys to give a sweet-
heart or an athlete to boast of accomplishments.
Lamar Childers, former director of youth baseball behind the levee, reunited the Coosa graduate with his lost trophy a few weeks ago.
Couey, now an electrical engineer in Maryland, said he remembers the day he lost the ring while watching his classmates play baseball.
The ring was only a few months old, and he was giving it special care, he said, which was why he put it in his pocket while washing his hands at the ballpark. Somewhere between the sink and bleachers the ring disappeared.
“I stayed there for hours looking for it,” Couey said.
“I went back several days later and even tried looking at night using a flashlight.”
The gold band featured a black stone, Coosa High School lettering and detailed his name and jersey numbers from baseball and basketball.
“I hadn’t had it that long, and I was very disappointed,” he said.
Days passed and Couey gave up hope. The high school junior even refused his parents’ offer to buy another class ring.
Couey went on to graduate from Georgia Tech, where he met his wife Meredith.
During the time Couey was growing up, Childers retired from youth baseball and put his briefcase away in a closet.
For 26 years Childers had taken a briefcase to the park for league paper work, but it was also an informal lost and found.
Whether it was found the day Couey lost the ring, or several days after, someone dropped it in a pocket of Childers’ briefcase and that’s where it stayed for 14 years.
Childers was recently named national director of Dizzy Dean Baseball and went in search of the case.
“I stuffed my hand in one of the pockets and found something heavy and out of place,” Childers said.
“I put my hand back in, and my little finger went on the ring.”
It was dirty with dry mud, but Childers said he could make out a name.
“I knew a bunch of Coueys from working at General Electric, so I thought back and figured it had to be Douglas’ boy (Douglas is Clay Couey’s father),” he said.
He called the Coueys and spoke to a daughter who was tending to matters at the house while her parents were out of town.
“I’ve got something that belongs to your brother,” Childers said he told Couey’s sister
Her first response was asking if it was a ring. “After all this time I couldn’t believe it,” he said.
Childers waited until the younger Couey returned to Rome to visit his parents and then went to the Couey house on Blacks Bluff Road.
Couey said at his parents’ home he recognized Childers but never made a connection.
“He said he went to Coosa, too, and told me that I probably have a ring like his,” Couey said, explaining how Childers held up his hand to reveal his class ring he’d lost years before.
“That’s when everybody started laughing, and it all fell into place,” he said. “I was in a state of shock.”
But after more than a decade the ring fit like a glove, Couey said.
Childers, who graduated from Rome High School and never attended a class at Coosa, said he was proud to be able to return the ring.
“I’m glad Clay got it back,” he said. “He was thrilled to death.”
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