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Ring lost in Maine in 1973 found in a Finland forest in 2020

Debra McKenna, 63, said her boyfriend Shawn McKenna, who she later married, gave her his ring when he went away to college.
Metal detector hovering about green grass.

BRUNSWICK, Maine — A high school class ring lost in Portland, Maine in 1973 was recently found buried in a forest in Finland.

How the ring got there may never be known.

Debra McKenna, 63, said her boyfriend Shawn McKenna, who she later married, gave her his ring when he went away to college. 

McKenna said she took the ring off while at a department store in Portland and forgot to put it back on. She said she went back to get the ring, but it was already gone.

"I left my name and number at the store but never got contacted by anybody, and that was it," McKenna told the Bangor Daily News. "I never saw it again."

She pretty much forgot about the ring until last month when a man found the ring in Finland.

According to a Jan. 17 Finnish newspaper story, Marko Saarinen was using a metal detector in a forest when he found the ring beneath several inches of dirt.

Saarinen told the paper he was excited when he first dug up the ring.

"Usually my findings are bottle caps or other junk," he told the paper.

Saarinen posted a picture of the ring on Morse High School's class of 1973 Facebook page. It didn't take long for the alumni association to identify who the ring belonged too.

McKenna said she and her husband had a wonderful life together until he passed away in 2017 after a battle with cancer.

“He’s telling me to get my act together. To get going with the rest of my life,” McKenna told the Bangor Daily News.

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