Quick Take
While searching for sea glass at Platforms beach in Aptos, Santa Cruz nurse Lisa Crouch discovered a long-lost class ring belonging to Jeremy Kennedy, a 1997 Soquel High graduate who lost it while surfing nearly three decades ago. After sharing a photo of the ring on Facebook, Crouch was able to track down Kennedy — now living in Oregon — and return the sentimental item, which he called the best Christmas gift he’s ever received.
On her days off from her nursing job at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, Lisa Crouch, 49, spends her free time searching for sea glass along the shorelines of New Brighton and Rio Del Mar state beaches.
A hobby she started during the pandemic because she enjoys the meditative aspect of walking the beach and finding smooth, frosted-looking glass, Crouch collects pieces and stores them in a basket.
On the afternoon of Dec. 29 at the Platforms area of Rio Del Mar State Beach, she didn’t find any sea glass while digging in the rocks. Instead, she pulled a weathered class ring from the sand and pebbles: “I was really shocked to find it.”
Hoping to find the owner and return it, she went home and posted a photo of the ring on her Facebook page, including what was etched into it: “Went to Platforms to look for sea glass and found this!! Soquel High football. Kennedy Line Backer class of 97’. Hoping to find the person it belongs to.”
After that, “I had so many people who asked me, ‘Can you find my class ring?” Crouch laughed.
Someone who saw Crouch’s post recognized the Kennedy name as someone he went to Soquel High School with, Crouch said. He reached out to Jeremy Kennedy and shared Crouch’s contact information with him.
Kennedy, 47, who now lives in Beaverton, Oregon, couldn’t believe it when his high school friend told him that someone might have found his class ring.
Originally from Capitola, Kennedy worked at a restaurant during his senior year to raise money to buy the ring. He recalls it cost around $350, which was more than he had ever saved up at that time to buy something.
He had the ring for just a couple of months before he went surfing in March 1997 at Capitola Beach. While surfing, the ring fell off.
“I felt horrible,” he said. “I was devastated.”
Shortly after, Kennedy left for the military, where he served for four years. He hasn’t been back to Santa Cruz since then. After the military, he moved to Beaverton, where he works on a Christmas tree and lavender farm.
For a while, he occasionally regretted not taking the ring off before surfing that day but eventually he stopped thinking about it.
Crouch and Kennedy exchanged Facebook messages. At first he didn’t recognize the ring because it was so discolored and worn. But he realized he was the only Kennedy to graduate from Soquel High that year. He and Crouch then hopped on the phone.
Crouch told him she wanted to mail him the ring and sent it within a few days. She was worried it was going to get lost in the mail.
“I said to her, if it got lost in the mail, that’d be funny if it was lost for another 27 years,” Kennedy recalled to Lookout. “When I got it, I opened it up, it was just kind of a shocking moment. I’ve heard about this stuff, where somebody had lost a ring or something, but I never thought it was going to happen to me.”
He received the ring sometime in January: “Best Christmas present I’ve ever gotten, and from a complete stranger.” The story of the long-lost ring’s discovery was first reported by Investigate TV.
Kennedy said the ring is a different color now. It used to be a shiny, bright silver. Today, it’s crusted with a patina from the sea water but he’s come to embrace the look and the story it tells of the ring’s history: “It’s gnarled by the ocean, it’s like glass. I didn’t wash anything off.”
He wears it every day on his pinky finger, next to another ring he bought in the ‘90s from a store in the Capitola Mall. The ring has waves carved around it. He said both serve as reminders of his upbringing in his hometown.
For Kennedy, the experience has brightened his outlook amid personal challenges and the social unrest in the world.
“I’ve had a lot of hard things recently,” he said, declining to go into detail. “I think this is karma’s way of throwing me a bone.”
Crouch said she’s still spending her free time looking for sea glass. But so far, the ring has been the “biggest surprise.”
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