SAN ANTONIO \u2013 Two San Antonio men who were complete strangers met at a park Tuesday and quickly formed a bond over a small memento.<\/p>\n
Richard Escobedo shook Lamarcus Johnson\u2019s hand and then opened a case full of shiny high school class rings.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you pick it out?\u201d he said to Johnson.<\/p>\n
Within seconds, Johnson pointed out a ring, a huge smile stretching across his face.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight there!\u201d he laughed, picking it up. \u201cHonestly I thought that thing was gone.\u201d <\/p>\n
Johnson said he worked incredibly hard to earn his high school class ring, just for it to be lost years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was Judson High School. I graduated in 2004 and then of course the rocket was our symbol,\u201d he said, pointing out all the details on his newfound ring. <\/p>\n
He called the reunion a Christmas miracle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been looking for signs for good luck lately, so I think this is one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Johnson said he\u2019s had a tough year, but being reunited with his ring gives him hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cBig car wreck, lost everything, trying to rebuild and stuff,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cSo you know, little things like this give you that extra hope \u2014 that \u2018OK, don\u2019t just give up, you got to keep it up.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a new sense of perseverance, which is what made Escobedo start his heartfelt hobby in the first place.<\/p>\n
He lost his own beloved class ring that he designed before he graduated in 1982 from John F. Kennedy High School in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been to pawn shops and antique stores, anything secondhand,\u201d Escobedo said. \u201cYear after year, I never found it, never saw it. Then I started seeing others. That\u2019s when it hit me and I said, \u2018You know what, I should start buying these class rings and return them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2019 he started a Facebook page called Class Rings Bought to Reunite to Rightful Owners<\/a>.<\/p>\n Six years later, he has reunited more than 200 people with their class rings, all over the nation.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the most heartfelt ones are like when the person passes away. And the family, they don\u2019t even know that their class ring is out there. So when I get to return it to the family, they get a piece of their loved one,\u201d Escobedo said. <\/p>\n The oldest ring he has found is a University of Texas at Austin ring from 1960. <\/p>\n \u201cSome of them don\u2019t have initials or names so it gets really hard. Some we just have not been able to track down,\u201d Escobedo said.<\/p>\n When starting his searches, he uses hints from the ring, including initials, names, years and schools to track owners down online.<\/p>\n \u201cI had been calling numbers after numbers and disconnected and no longer in service,\u201d he told Johnson about the search for him. \u201cFinally, literally the last number I called, it said \u2018Melvin,\u2019 right, your dad. I said, \u2018Let me just try one more.\u2019 Your dad picked up and I said, \u2018Do you know Lamarcus?\u2019 And he goes, \u2018Yeah, that\u2019s my son.\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018All right, finally!\u2019\u201d Escobedo said. <\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s really amazing,\u201d Johnson told him. \u201cKeep doing what you\u2019re doing, Richard, because it\u2019s really appreciated.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re welcome,\u201d Escobedo said. \u201cI\u2019m happy for you that you got yours. Take care of it!\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not going nowhere! It\u2019s going to be extra protected now,\u201d Johnson laughed, saying he will now be keeping it on a necklace he wears every day.<\/p>\n Escobedo said there are some instances when he finds the ring owners and they no longer want them. In those cases, he sells them back to the Alamo Antique Mall in downtown San Antonio so he can use that money to buy other rings that people may want. <\/p>\n Anyone looking for a lost class ring can join Escobedo\u2019s Facebook page<\/a>. He has organized albums of all the rings he has bought. <\/p>\n In the meantime, he hopes the public will keep an eye out for his class ring \u2014 a John F. Kennedy High School ring with an oval green stone, and a rocket under the stone. On one side is a rocket, and the other side has band instruments. Inside the ring is his signature.<\/p>\n Anyone who thinks they\u2019ve found Escobedo\u2019s ring can reach out to him on Facebook<\/a>, or email Courtney Friedman at cfriedman@ksat.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n Read also:<\/p>\n Copyright 2025 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 Two San Antonio men who were complete strangers met at a park Tuesday and quickly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[43301,43302,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-92208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-judson-high-school","tag-kennedy-high-school","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}