Jim Conrad was about to pack up his metal detector and leave for the day after finding nothing of note during a search of the Howard Elementary School playground Saturday.

But on his final try, the Niles man’s metal detector started beeping after passing over an area about 15 feet away from a basketball court.

“It seemed like a good hit, so I stayed with it,” he said.

Conrad dug down about eight inches into the ground and found a sterling silver class ring. After cleaning it off, he saw it was from Grace Baptist School in South Bend with the date, 1977. The initials “J-D-W” were engrained on the inside.

Conrad, who attended Howard Elementary in the early 1970s, posted a couple pictures of the ring on his Facebook page and asked if anyone knew whom it belonged to.

To his surprise, the owner — Janice D. (White) Hensel, of Niles — was found within five hours.

Hensel said she bought the ring as a sophomore at Grace Baptist in the early 1970s, but never graduated from the school because she moved out of the district before the end of her sophomore year.

A friend who knew that Hensel attended Grace Baptist School saw Conrad’s Facebook post and called her to see if her ring was missing. When she noticed it was, she reached out to Conrad and picked up the ring Sunday.

“It is nice to have it back again, but I didn’t even know it was lost,” she said. “I guess I never thought about it that much — I’ve been out of school 40 years. I don’t even remember the last time I wore it.”

So what happened to it?

Hensel’s theory is that one of her children or her children’s friends put it on and lost it out at the playground. Hensel said her kids — Alexia Sowers and Cole Hensel — attended Howard Elementary from around 1996 to 2004.

Neither of her children, she said, remember taking the ring.

“I am thinking it had to be here some 15 to 20 years,” she said.

Conrad, who has been metal detecting for approximately 10 years, said this was by far the most interesting item he has found.

“It just made my year actually to be able to get something back to somebody that certainly has some meaning,” he said. “I don’t know how we will top this one.”

Conrad said he was even more amazed at the speed in which the owner of the ring was found thanks to social media.

“I don’t think this ever would have happened 10 years ago,” he said.

Hensel agreed.

“It is pretty bizarre, but it makes for a cool story,” Hensel said. “I guess that’s the benefit of Facebook. There’s a lot of crap on Facebook, but I guess it has some good uses too.”