CRESTVIEW — Jean Todd keeps a class football ring beside her jewelry box, a place it’s sat for nearly two decades.
“I hope one day I find whoever it belongs to,” Todd said.
She found the ring while working at a local gas station around 1997-98 and has been searching for the owner ever since.
The front of the ring depicts a logo of the letter “D” with a large cat of some kind coming out from it. The words “Conference Champions” arch over and under the logo on the silver-and-black ring.
“We attach emotions to material things and that might be someone’s only emotional attachment to a memory,” Todd said. That’s the reason she’s held onto the ring for almost 20 years.
“I forget about it from time to time, but when I remember, I start looking again,” Todd said. “I’ve been doing it for all these years — no sense in stopping now.”
The ring isn’t the only thing Todd has attempted to reunite with its owner. She’s sought owners of lost wallets, jewelry, glasses, clothing and other personal items. Previously, she used phone books and word-of-mouth to find an item's rightful owner but social media and the internet have shifted her tactics.
She’s taken her search online for Scott Walls, the ring’s possible owner. The ring is engraved with his name and featured next to a helmet with the number 16 displayed.
The opposite side reads “1993” and an “11-2” record is etched into the details next to a state outline. Todd believed the state outline was Alabama, but a closer inspection of the ring reveals an outline resembling Arkansas.
The Arkansas Activities Association maintains a comprehensive list of high school athletic programs in the state, and a search discovered a school logo nearly identical to that of the ring.
De Queen High School, located in a town of the same name with a population of about 6,500 residents, appears to be the match. The school’s athletic director, Bob Sikes, could not be reached via phone calls to the school. Calls to head football coach Justin Kramer were also unanswered.
“I’ll leave it in my will and see if somebody else will [find Walls],” Todd said when asked what she would do if he was never located.
Todd might know the school but finding Walls about 24 years after he received the ring is still her goal.
With a new direction to search, Todd has begun to contact De Queen faculty coaches. The search for Walls continues.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Woman seeks missing ring's owner