This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2004, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

GRACE, Idaho - It took Randy Lester two years of work to save up the money for his North Gem High School class ring, and only six months to lose it.

The 1967 graduate was devastated when the ring disappeared during a day spent cleaning an old dairy farm in Grace. In those days, $189 was a lot of money, he said.

But now, nearly four decades later, the ring is back on Lester's finger, a gift from a woman who found the jewelry in her garden bed.

From the day he lost it at the dairy farm, he never really gave up finding the ring, Lester said.

''I went back over the next few weekends to look for it, but I couldn't find it,'' he said. ''I thought about it every time I drove past there for years.''

When the dairy farm was sold years later, Lester talked to the new owners, asking them to contact him if they found the ring.

Though they never found it, they did haul several loads of rich soil to a farm five miles away.

''I believe the lady wanted to build flower beds,'' Lester said.

But the ring remained undiscovered for several more years, and eventually that property also sold. When JoLin Bowen moved to the farm, she decided she would get rid of the elevated flower beds, and in June her mother, Jenny Hall, decided to take some of the soil for her own garden in Soda Springs.

Hall was weeding two weeks ago when the ring surfaced.

''I could read North Gem and the year. I knew it was a man's ring from the size. The initials were a little harder to make out, but it looked like R.L.,'' Hall said.

She asked her co-workers at Monsanto if they knew anyone who had lost a ring, and one man offered to bring in his sister's North Gem High School yearbook from 1967.

It was a small school with only about 30 people in the class of 1967. Only two students had the initials R.L. - Randy Lester and his twin brother, Reed - and Reed had eventually graduated from another school.

Hall called Randy Lester to let him know she'd found his ring.

''I was hoping it would mean as much to the owner as it did to me, and it did,'' she said. ''I returned it on Saturday and by Sunday everyone in Grace knew about it. I guess good news travels fast.''

Lester was surprised and happy about the find, he said. He plans to have the ring reshaped and will wear it often.