NATCHEZ &045;&045; Science can tell a lot from a piece of jewelry.

Reports from a forensic jeweler, two initials and long lists of graduation records have several Natchez High graduates on a nationwide search for the owner of a 1939 NHS class ring.

About a month ago, Guns and Gold Pawn Shop received the ring from a man who said he found it on the Natchez Trace using a metal detector. Pawnshop owner Vernon Smith contacted former Natchez resident Larry Bass, who runs a Web site documenting NHS from the 1920s to the 1960s.

&uot;Our goal would be to reunite the person’s heir or themselves with this ring in some sort of presentation,&uot; Bass said from his Baltimore home.

Bass and Natchez residents Tony Byrne and George Perry Adams used graduation lists from the 1939 class to narrow the search down to two men.

The names Morris Hyman, of California, and Milton Hodges, who is deceased, matched the initials MH engraved in the ring.

Bass said he showed the ring to a forensic jeweler who returned a profile of the owner. The jeweler said the owner was probably a man who was an athlete, who later worked as a tradesman. Bass said the ring was well worn and said the profile indicated the man was proud to wear the ring and probably wore it for many years.

Bass said the ring is true gold and that he suspects it was lost at a class reunion on the Natchez Trace about 30 years ago.

Byrne said the two men identified and their families have not been contacted as of yet.

Bass plans to put photos of the ring on his Web site,

http://www.natchez-rebels.org/,

to help locate the owner.