While watching a news program about divers recovering lost artifacts from the depths of the ocean, Marianne Price felt a call to action.
She, too, knew the location of a treasure, and she didn’t need to go deep-sea diving to find it. She needed only to fish it out of the depths of the small jewelry box in her bedroom.
The real detective work will be in finding the owner of the pretty gold wedding ring — the person who lost it in the Snowbird parking lot close to 35 years ago.
“It’s a very nice little ring,” Price said, “and every time I look at it, it makes me sad.”
Price said she found the ring sometime between 1984-86. She can’t remember exactly, because her husband of more than 50 years, David Price, was a ski team coach during that time and they spent most of their days on the hill. After one particularly long ski session, the couple returned to their car late in the afternoon, after most other patrons had left.
Something in the tire track where the car next to theirs had been parked caught Price’s eye. It turned out to be an ornate gold ring embedded with diamonds.
“We couldn’t find out who owned it because the car wasn’t there,” Price, 79, said.
She and her husband kept their ears open for anyone who might report the ring missing, but no one ever turned up.
“It does make me sad,” she said. “She must have been very sad that day.”
Price has never worn the ring. She stashed it in her jewelry box, where it has been for more than three decades and through at least four moves. Though out of sight, it has been firmly wedged in her subconscious. Inspired by the treasure-hunters on the newscast, Price, who now lives in Arizona, decided to excavate it and make a more proactive attempt to find its owner.
Dave Fields, Snowbird’s president and general manager, said items of all sizes, shapes and values are lost and found at the resort every day. He said they have shipped misplaced paraphernalia to grateful skiers and snowboarders around the world.
“We see tons of stuff turned into our lost and found,” he said in an email. “Everything from wallets to credit cards to cell phones to hats to goggles.”
The ring is not the most unusual thing to be left behind at Snowbird, however. Jay Jensen, the ski area’s longtime public safety director, said he knew of at least one instance in which someone left an artificial leg.
“The guy didn’t realize it was missing because it was his ski leg and he left it after his last day of skiing for the season,” Jensen said in an email. “He was from Canada and we shipped it back to him at no charge to him. He couldn’t believe that we still had it.”
Price has asked that anyone wishing to claim the ring contact Tribune reporter Julie Jag at jjag@sltrib.com
