SAN ANTONIO – Two San Antonio men who were complete strangers met at a park Tuesday and quickly formed a bond over a small memento.
Richard Escobedo shook Lamarcus Johnson’s hand and then opened a case full of shiny high school class rings.
“Can you pick it out?” he said to Johnson.
Within seconds, Johnson pointed out a ring, a huge smile stretching across his face.
“Right there!” he laughed, picking it up. “Honestly I thought that thing was gone.”
Johnson said he worked incredibly hard to earn his high school class ring, just for it to be lost years ago.
“It was Judson High School. I graduated in 2004 and then of course the rocket was our symbol,” he said, pointing out all the details on his newfound ring.
He called the reunion a Christmas miracle.
“I’ve been looking for signs for good luck lately, so I think this is one,” he said.
Johnson said he’s had a tough year, but being reunited with his ring gives him hope.
“Big car wreck, lost everything, trying to rebuild and stuff,” Johnson said. “So you know, little things like this give you that extra hope — that ‘OK, don’t just give up, you got to keep it up.’”
It’s a new sense of perseverance, which is what made Escobedo start his heartfelt hobby in the first place.
He lost his own beloved class ring that he designed before he graduated in 1982 from John F. Kennedy High School in San Antonio.
“I’ve been to pawn shops and antique stores, anything secondhand,” Escobedo said. “Year after year, I never found it, never saw it. Then I started seeing others. That’s when it hit me and I said, ‘You know what, I should start buying these class rings and return them.’”
In 2019 he started a Facebook page called Class Rings Bought to Reunite to Rightful Owners.
Six years later, he has reunited more than 200 people with their class rings, all over the nation.
“I think the most heartfelt ones are like when the person passes away. And the family, they don’t even know that their class ring is out there. So when I get to return it to the family, they get a piece of their loved one,” Escobedo said.
The oldest ring he has found is a University of Texas at Austin ring from 1960.
“Some of them don’t have initials or names so it gets really hard. Some we just have not been able to track down,” Escobedo said.
When starting his searches, he uses hints from the ring, including initials, names, years and schools to track owners down online.
“I had been calling numbers after numbers and disconnected and no longer in service,” he told Johnson about the search for him. “Finally, literally the last number I called, it said ‘Melvin,’ right, your dad. I said, ‘Let me just try one more.’ Your dad picked up and I said, ‘Do you know Lamarcus?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, that’s my son.’ And I’m like, ‘All right, finally!’” Escobedo said.
“That’s really amazing,” Johnson told him. “Keep doing what you’re doing, Richard, because it’s really appreciated.”
“You’re welcome,” Escobedo said. “I’m happy for you that you got yours. Take care of it!”
“It’s not going nowhere! It’s going to be extra protected now,” Johnson laughed, saying he will now be keeping it on a necklace he wears every day.
Escobedo said there are some instances when he finds the ring owners and they no longer want them. In those cases, he sells them back to the Alamo Antique Mall in downtown San Antonio so he can use that money to buy other rings that people may want.
Anyone looking for a lost class ring can join Escobedo’s Facebook page. He has organized albums of all the rings he has bought.
In the meantime, he hopes the public will keep an eye out for his class ring — a John F. Kennedy High School ring with an oval green stone, and a rocket under the stone. On one side is a rocket, and the other side has band instruments. Inside the ring is his signature.
Anyone who thinks they’ve found Escobedo’s ring can reach out to him on Facebook, or email Courtney Friedman at cfriedman@ksat.com.
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