US / Woman's ring lost 47 years ago in US found in a forest in Finland

An American woman’s high school class ring that was lost in Maine in 1973 has been found in a forest in Finland.

Debra McKenna, 63, lost the ring in Portland when she was a student at Morse high school, the Bangor Daily News reported. She said the ring was largely forgotten until a metal detectorist found it buried under 20cm (8in) of soil in a forested Finnish park 47 years later.

The ring belonged to McKenna’s late husband Shawn, whom she dated throughout high school and college. The couple were married for 40 years until he died in 2017. Shawn gave Debra the ring before he left for college, and she accidentally left it in a department store.

McKenna said she cried when the ring arrived in the mail at her home in Brunswick last week.

“It’s very touching in this world of negativity, to have decent people step forward and make an effort,” McKenna said. “There are good people in the world, and we need more of them.”

A Finnish Ilta-Sanomat reported in January, Marko Saarinen, a sheet metal worker, was using a metal detector in a park in Kaarina, a small town in south-west Finland, when he found the ring.

Saarinen was excited by the ring, which has an inscription reading “Morse high school”. He contacted the school’s alumni association and it identified Shawn as the owner because it also bore the 1973 graduation date, and the initials “S M”.