NATCHEZ — It was a bit of a wild goose chase, but a Natchez-Adams High School class ring from 1968 is back on the finger of its rightful owner.

With the help of former Natchez resident Jeanette Hutchinson Warren, a ring that had been stowed away in a desk drawer is now back at home with Natchezian Judy Strickland.

“Suzi Russ — she was a teacher (at the high school) — she found the ring but could never locate who it belonged to,” Warren said. “I was helping her clean out some things, and we found it again.”

Russ, a longtime teacher at Natchez High School, said she first discovered the ring tucked away in a drawer in a desk she inherited at the school. When Russ was packing up her desk in 1997, she found the ring again and decided to hang on to it to try to locate the owner.

“And I forgot about it for 12 years,” Russ said.

But when Russ, with the help of Warren, came across the ring this last time, she didn’t want it to be forgotten anymore.

“I said to (Jeanette), ‘We are going to find this person,’” Russ said.

And that is when the investigation began for Warren. Armed with only three initials — J.A.G — she was a woman on a mission.

“I love to investigate things like that so I started trying to find out who it was,” she said. “With initials, I thought we should be able to track that person down.”

So Warren started in the most logical place — Natchez High School. Her hope was that with the help of the school yearbook from 1968 she would be able to narrow down the possible owners.

With the help of NHS librarian Sandra Peoples, she was able to find a name that matched the inscribed initials, but had only a maiden name to go on.

Admittedly frustrated, Warren said she made a phone call to Mary Willard, a former librarian at the school who wasn’t able to give her a name either but did tell Warren to keep looking.

“She encouraged me to keep trying, so then I tried Becky Mason Jones, because her husband graduated in 1968,” Warren said.

Still without an identity, but feeling she might be getting closer, Warren’s next phone call was to Dicky Laird ,who also graduated in 1968.

“They had just had a reunion, and he said ‘I think I know who that might be,’” Warren said of her conversation with Laird. “He said ‘Judith Annette Griffin — I think that is Judy Strickland.’”

At last, Warren had a name to go with the jewelry. And after one quick phone call, it was confirmed that the ring did belong to Strickland.

“I still can’t believe it,” Strickland said about the circumstances of the ring hunt.

“She thought I was crazy,” Warren said.

Strickland said the ring went missing over 15 years ago when her daughter, Sara Delaney borrowed the ring without permission.

When the ring went missing, Strickland said Delaney didn’t immediately admit to losing the ring, but eventually the truth did come out.

“It was always someone else has it or someone else took it,” Strickland said.

But now, no matter the circumstances surrounding the ring’s disappearance, everyone is glad it is back on the proper finger.

Warren considers herself lucky to have found the owner but said she is even luckier that Strickland still makes her home in Natchez.

“I’ve been gone from here for 47 years,” Warren said. “I thought she had probably gotten married and moved off as well.”

Russ and Warren returned the ring to Strickland on Thursday. Not wanting to lose the ring again, Strickland joked that she wouldn’t let her daughter wear the ring but did say she would share it with another special family member.

“I’ll show it to my granddaughter. She is almost 8,” Strickland said. “She’ll find the story interesting.”