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A HOBBY TO TREASURE
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By NICOLA M. WHITE The Tampa Tribune
Published: Feb 3, 2007
LUTZ - Mark Prue stood shoulder-deep in the Gulf of Mexico, his waterproof metal detector beeping like crazy. Digging under the water, he pulled up four scoops of wet sand and plucked out what looked to be a lump of charcoal.
Looking closer, the 44-year-old Zephyrhills financial planner could see something shiny and red. When he scraped away the muck, he uncovered a beat-up class ring - a ring last seen in 1978.
Susan Allen-Bosco had just moved to Florida after graduating early from East Islip High School in Long Island, N.Y.. On a hot August day, she went swimming at St. Pete Beach with her sister.
While floating in rented inner tubes and plunging into the water to cool off, Allen-Bosco's ring caught on the tube's air valve. The ring slipped off her finger and disappeared into the Gulf.
The ring was her only memento from her dad, who died two years later. She thought about it often years after losing it.
In January, almost 29 years after that swim, Allen-Bosco's phone rang. It was the librarian from her old high school saying that a guy in Florida - Prue - had found the ring. It had taken him two and a half years to track her down.
Prue later said he felt it was his duty to find her. That's the way it goes with treasure hunters. For them, the hobby - sweeping metal detectors across sandy beaches or under water - isn't just about finding stuff. It's about uncovering stories and secrets of the things people leave behind.
At his home in Lutz, Prue keeps display boxes full of the rings, watches, sunglasses, coins - about $1,600 worth - and necklaces he's collected in the six years he's been taking a metal detector to the beach. The detector was a gift from his mom one Christmas.
He figured it would be fun.
It turned into a passion.
"It's just the unknown; you never know what you're going to come across. It's 'Wouldn't it be neat to find something that someone once treasured?' "
"It is the greatest feeling in the world to be able to return that to someone."
Some of his finds are easier to return than others. At Indian Rocks Beach, he heard a woman crying about losing her grandmother's diamond ring from 1911. He went to work and found the ring within 20 minutes.
If there's an engraving on the inside of a wedding band, he posts a classified message online and searches the newspaper to see whether anyone has reported it as lost.
Class rings, which offer at least a school name and a graduation year, should, in theory, be simple to return.
Susan Allen-Bosco's wasn't. Although her name was engraved on the inside, it was her maiden name: Susan G. Allen. Plus, the ring was old. When Prue looked up East Islip High School and called for help, he ran into dead ends and voicemails.
Still, he wondered about the ring. In December, almost two years after finding it, he brought the ring to the Suncoast Research & Recovery Club, where he serves as treasurer, and showed it to the group.
The group meets monthly to compare finds and do a little bragging. The members, who live by a written code of ethics while searching for lost treasure, also share tips about reuniting people with their belongings.
"When you can find something that you believe you can trace the owner, it's incumbent upon you to return it," Prue said.
One member suggested calling a fellow treasure hunter in Pennsylvania who is known for lost class ring success stories. The woman, Karen Leonardi, caught the ear of the right person at East Islip High School, Prue said.
That set things into motion.
Going It Alone
Treasure hunters spend quiet hours on the beach or in public parks, often before anyone else gets there.
Although some people make snide remarks or toss pennies into the treasure hunters' paths, Prue brushes off such antics.
Most people are just curious - about the treasure hunters and what drives them.
Prue's a normal guy who wears crisp shirts to work and gives homegrown roses to the women at Dunkin' Donuts when his garden's in bloom. Out on the beach, loaded down with gear, he might look strange. His wife, Amy, teases him about it.
He usually hits Pass-a-Grille Beach, his favorite spot, just before daylight on weekend mornings. Prue walks into the tide with a metal detector, a sorting apron and a long scoop attached to his belt. Sometimes, the metal detector picks up junk: Matchbox cars, broken sunglasses and mountains of old soda can pull tabs.
In the water and on the sand, Prue has found scores of gold and silver rings, chunky silver necklaces, mismatched earrings and Catholic medals.
The things he finds spark lots of questions: Who would wear a 3-inch, cubic zirconium-studded crucifix on a thick braided chain to the beach? Was the platinum engagement ring lost by accident, or did an angry lover throw it into the ocean?
In summer 2004, when he pulled out the lump of charcoal that turned out to be a class ring, he wondered about that, too. He figured it wasn't worth much but that someone had cherished it.
He was right.
Thanks For The Memories
The silver class ring with the simulated ruby in the center cost $52, but to Allen-Bosco, it was worth so much more.
Her dad, Robert Allen, saved up to buy it for her, and then they picked it out together. A gold ring would have cost $85 - too much.
She personalized the ring with the scales of the Libra, her Zodiac sign, and the school mascot, an Indian head. The graduation year was 1978, a year earlier than Allen-Bosco intended to graduate.
That year, Allen-Bosco's mother and stepfather had told her they were moving to Florida and that she was going with them. She dreaded the thought of starting her senior year at a new school, so she doubled up her classes and graduated a year early.
She hated leaving Long Island, her friends and father, a bridge operator with the highway department in New York City. Her parents had divorced when she was 12, but she had remained close to her dad.
"I was just so heartbroken over the whole thing and being torn away from my school, my friends and my father," Allen-Bosco, now 45, remembered. "It was just a hard time. That's why the ring was so significant, too, because it represented all those things and my dad."
When she lost the ring, she couldn't bring herself to ask her dad for money to buy a new one. So she picked up a job at McDonald's and bought a replacement.
Two years later, her dad fell down the stairs of his apartment building in New York and died. He was 40.
"It was a rough period. It was so hard being away from family and then the trauma on top of it," she said.
As an adult, she moved back to New York. She married Mark Bosco in 1985 and went to work as an assistant librarian at Stony Brook University in Long Island.
In January, while she was home sick with a cold, her phone rang. A woman from East Islip High School was looking for a Susan Allen who had graduated in 1978. Someone had found her high school ring, the woman said.
Allen-Bosco flipped open her jewelry box. The replacement ring was right there. The lost ring? No way could someone find that.
Prue had, though.
She cried. She called her mother and grandmother - both of whom were on the beach that day. She called Prue and thanked him profusely.
A few weeks ago, Allen-Bosco went back to East Islip High School for an impromptu reunion. She held the ring, which was slightly tarnished with some bumpy edges.
Somehow, her ring had traveled the couple of miles south from the waters of St. Pete Beach to Pass-A-Grille. It lodged in the sand, building up a thick black layer that made it look like a lump of charcoal.
Something or someone guided Prue and his metal detector there, she said.
"He could have totally passed it over," she said. "I believe that was my father. He brought Mark to that spot. He made him curious about that rock until he saw the red stone poking through. I really believe that."
Prue, who has spoken to Allen-Bosco only on the phone, said tears welled up in his eyes when Allen-Bosco thanked him.
"It teaches you a lesson - that what you might not think is of importance, to her, is of great importance."
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