McMaster University graduate’s lost class ring returned after 47 years

In a happy and almost stranger-than-fiction story, a 1965 graduate of Hamilton’s McMaster University recently received a completely unexpected surprise. 

According to a release from McMaster’s Daily News, Morgan Perigo – an alumnus of the university’s Faculty of Science – was reunited with the class ring he lost decades prior in the ocean on a family trip to Barbados 47 years ago. 

Anyone in the same situation would expect to never see that ring again; but a package showed up on Perigo’s doorstep – fortuitously on the eve of his 83rd birthday – with the lost graduation ring inside. 

𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝: 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐋𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐑𝐢𝐧𝐠
According to a recent McMaster University press release, 83-year-old Morgan Perigo had his graduation ring from 1965 returned after 47 years lost at sea during a trip to Barbados. Perigo's ring… pic.twitter.com/hRSdiZr1G4

— TechBuzzRecap (@TechBuzzRecap) November 1, 2024

The ring was improbably recovered by a professional freediver named Alex Davis, who discovered it on the ocean floor with his underwater metal detector. 

Davis then reached out to McMaster with a photo of the ring in hopes of returning it to its owner, using the engraved year and the initials ‘FMP’ – for Frederick Morgan Perigo – on the ring as clues. 

Alumni officer Laura Escalante tracked down Perigo via those clues, and emailed him to confirm that the ring was, in fact, his; a conclusion that’s as heartwarming as it is unbelievable! 

See the full story on the McMaster University website. 

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• Barbados
• class ring
• Hamilton
• HamOnt
• McMaster University
• Morgan Perigo
• ring
• school
• student
• university