This story is a ringing endorsement to metal detectorists everywhere, good old-fashioned kindness, or both.

Bob Thomas, with the aid of his metal detector, found a Powell High School Class of 1968 ring some time ago. After many years forgotten in a box, his wife Patricia Thomas rediscovered the ring while sorting through some of the couple’s belongings.

She suggested that they find the owner, but Bob could not recall exactly where he unearthed it, said Laura Kurtz, who volunteers at the Homesteader Museum.

The Homesteader plays a crucial role in this mystery, since Kurtz was its narrator and the guardian of PHS yearbooks within the museum’s archives.

The initials MP were inscribed on the ring, but that was the only clue Patricia Thomas had to go on. Still, Patricia is no run-of-the-mill jewelry sleuth. She called Powell High School over the summer, Kurtz said.

That was when the big break in the case came.

As luck would have it, there was only one MP who graduated from PHS in 1968, Kurtz said.

His name was Michael Peyton.

Kurtz is a friend of Patricia’s and was visiting her in Apache Junction, Arizona, when they decided to look in an old Powell phone book; they found only one person listed with the name of Peyton.

On Nov. 12, Patricia called the number, and the woman who answered was Nona Peyton, Michael’s mother.

“She said she almost didn’t answer because she didn’t recognize the number,” Kurtz said.

As it turned out, Michael still lives in Powell, and he and his brother Greg often get together at their mother’s house for a home-cooked Sunday dinner.

At Patricia’s request, Kurtz delivered the ring to Nona a few days later. Nona said she considered waiting until Christmas to reveal it to Mike, but then she decided to spring it on him on Sunday, Nov. 20.

“He was really surprised and excited,” Nona recalled. “He said, ‘Holy crap!’ three times.”

The ring was likely lost shortly after Mike took ownership of it, Nona said. Washington Park could be the location where it was last seen.

But Mike’s ring wasn’t exactly mislaid.

Around 1970 or 1971, Mike was going to school at Montana State-Billings and his girlfriend, Bev Jones, was attending Northwest College. Bev was wearing his class ring when they broke up and, in a fit of teen angst, Mike said he took the ring “and flung it as far as I could.”

It was a doozy of a ring. Nona recalled they paid a pretty penny for it.

“I think we thought it was pretty expensive,” she said.

Broken hearts mend, though, and people gain perspective with time.

“(It’s) something I can look back at and laugh at now,” Mike said. “If she (Bev) ever reads that, she’ll get a kick out of it.”

Mike scored that Sunday evening: A pot of homemade hamburger soup and a nice ring to wear, all thanks to his mom.

To say he was surprised would be an understatement.

“‘Flabbergasted’ is a good word,” he said.