Lost wedding ring found in Alberta football field, 50 years later

This is truly a golden wedding anniversary yearfor high school sweethearts Willard and Diana Turner.

Willard has been reunited with his wedding ring, a band of engraved gold he lost in central Alberta 50 years ago.

The precious ring was lost in their hometown ofEdberg,on the football field near the high school where the lovebirds first met.

In 1966, just a few months after exchanging vows, the Kelowna couple returned home to the village 30 kilometres south of Camrose.

During their visit, Willard was asked to referee a football game at the local football field.

That's when the ring slipped off his finger.

It would have remained buried in the dirt forever had it not been for their friend Chris McCrea, who used his trusty metal detector to unearth the precious gem.

"It's what a guy in the hobby dreams about," McCrea said Tuesday in an interview with CBC Edmonton's Radio Active.

"You go out looking for treasure, and if you can return something like that, to me, that's what it's all about."

The Turners were on another visit home to Edberg when they noticed McCrea's metal-detecting gearand mentioned the lost wedding band.

They soon went out to spend a rainy afternoon searching for the tiny band of gold. But after hours of circling the field, they left empty-handed.

'He couldn't believe it'

McCrea's hopes of finding the ring weren't tarnished.

He returned time and time again, spending countless hours searching the area, digging through the dirt with his hands at every ping of the metal detector.

"Whenever we went out, we would look for it.

"We got to the point, because we had covered the area so many times, we thought maybe it wasn't even there anymore."

Finally, three months after his search began, he hit paydirt.

He found the ring buried just a few centimetres below the surface of the football field.

"When you're metal detecting, you just get a target and most of the time with a ring, what you're going to dig up is a pull tab off a can," McCrea said.

"And you could dig up a thousand or two thousand pull tabs and find one ring. It's a ratio like that.So when it came up, I just figured it was a pull tab."

Untarnished treasure

Even after years embedded in the mucky football field, the ring was untarnished. McCrea couldn't believe it.

"When it came out of the ground, the gold looked like the day it went in. It looked brand new."

McCrea exchanged photographs with the Turners to confirm his find. They were shocked to see the ring again.

"His first text back was,"Holyshit!" McCrea said of Willard's reaction to the news.

"He couldn't believe it.There it was."

After 50 years,Willardhas never outgrownthe love he shares with his wifebutthe hard-working grandfather has indeed"outgrown" his wedding band.

"The bad part of the story is the damned thing shrunk while it was in the ground for 50 years, so I can't get it on my finger," Willard said in an interview, "but I can wear it around my neck."

He said the ring looked great after half a century underground but he took it to a jeweler anyway and had it cleaned up and hung on a chain.

The Turners celebrated their golden anniversary in Mexico at the beginning of 2016, with their children.

"This is sort of a late gift," Willardsaid of his newfoundring.

Meanwhile, finding the romantic memento has only reinvigorated McCrea's love of the hunt.

He faithfully heads out into the fields and streets of his hometown to search for lost treasure.

"I'm out there all the time looking, searching for the lost history of the little town of Edberg."

• Warning to treasure hunters: Stay away from Cannonball Hill!