MAPLE VALLEY - It wasn't too strange when treasure hunters in Florida found a ring buried in sand this week - but it was incredible to find its owner 3,000 miles away in Maple Valley.

And the story became even stranger when it turned out that the ring's owner lost the ring 51 years ago - in 1957, when the Soviets launched the space age with Sputnik and Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House.

In that year, newlywed David Perry was water-skiing in Florida on a cool overcast day, wearing his gold Georgia Tech college class ring.

"Then the ring slipped off my finger into the water - you know - never to be seen again, or so I thought," says Perry, now 77 years old and retired from Boeing. "My heart went with it. What do you do - it's gone."

Fast-forward to 2008.

Nearly 100 feet offshore, Perry's ring surfaced in mint condition.

A treasure hunter armed with an underwater metal detector was wading in the waters by Key Biscayne Florida when suddenly the detector started going off and a foot below the sand was Perry's college ring.

Determined to find the owner, Jorge Balmori enlisted a fellow teacher to help him track down D.L. Perry - the initials inscribed inside the class of '52 ring.

Says Dennis Rodrigues: "We noticed the fraternity symbol on the front of Sigma Chi." They hit paydirt calling the frat.

"I'm so thankful," says Perry, who adds the return of the lost ring is stirring up years of memories.

As it turns out, Perry missed the ring so much that he replaced it with another one that he has worn ever since.

But now he can wear the original that he truly treasured and lost so many years ago.