Lord of the Ring

Every now and then, a story finds its way back to us that feels almost too remarkable to be true. This is one of those stories. 

Earlier this year, a phone call came into Chatham Hall with a simple question: Could we help reunite someone with a lost class ring? Brad Edwards, pictured, had been searching for arrowheads near Black Mountain, close to Montreat, North Carolina, when he came across something unexpected. After cleaning it, he realized it was a Chatham Hall ring, engraved with the initials “MMH” and the year 1975. 

With a bit of digging through our records, we had a strong hunch about who it might belong to: Marguerite Haywood Suggs ’75. What happened next is what makes Chatham Hall so special. 

Marguerite quickly confirmed what she had long assumed was lost to time. She knew exactly when the ring slipped away from her. It was the summer of 1974, just weeks after receiving it from her senior at the Lantern Ceremony. She was at an Episcopal summer camp, doing cartwheels in a field that had once been a golf course. Somewhere in that moment, full of joy and movement and youth, the ring disappeared. And for more than 50 years, she assumed it was lost until this spring. 

“I’ve got a new story on my hands, the Lord of the Ring!” she shared, with the kind of humor and wonder that only a moment like this can inspire. 

It’s hard not to pause at the improbability of it all. A ring lost in a fleeting summer moment. Decades passing. Land changing hands. And then, one day, someone searching the ground for something entirely different stumbles upon a small piece of Chatham Hall history and chooses to return it. 

There is something deeply meaningful in that choice. In taking the time to clean the ring, to read its inscription, to track down its origin, and to make the call. It reminds us that even the smallest objects can carry great significance, and that there are still people in the world who believe in returning things, in closing loops, in doing the right thing. 

For Marguerite, this is more than a ring. It is a tangible connection to a moment in her life, to her time at Chatham Hall, to a younger version of herself doing cartwheels on a summer day. And for all of us, it is a reminder: the Chatham Hall story doesn’t end at graduation. It stays with you, sometimes in ways you least expect, and sometimes, if you’re very lucky, even if you think you have lost it, it finds its way back to you.