He lost his wedding ring on a 20-hectare farm. It was returned 15 years later

Wayne Corprew with the wedding band that was found 15 years after he lost it. Photo / Robert Elmore, the Washington Post

Wayne Corprew cut down a Christmas tree for his family at a farm in 2010 - and when he got to his truck to drive it home, he realised his wedding ring was missing.

He searched to no avail, then reported it to Sue Bostic, who owned the 20ha farm.

Bostic wrote Corprew’s name and cellphone number on a yellow sticky note that she pinned onto a bulletin board in her office.

“Lost wedding ring band,” the note said. “Do not throw away.”

Fifteen years later, Corprew was shocked to receive a call from Joe’s Trees in Newport, Virginia.

The farm’s new owners found the ring covered in dirt while planting corn last month.

Then they leafed through the sticky notes on the bulletin board, each one with a handwritten name and lost item, and called Corprew with the news.

Corprew, who gave up on retrieving the ring a few months after he lost it, was shocked. Roanoke news channel WDBJ first reported the story.

The yellow sticky note that listed Wayne Corprew's name and phone number had stayed on Joe’s Trees's bulletin board since December 2010. Photo / Darren Gilreath, the Washington Post

“How in the world, in 50 acres of Christmas trees, you’re walking all around it, and you get a call 15 years later and they find it?” Corprew, 61, told the Washington Post.

Corprew said he and his then-wife, Teresa, found a2.4m-tall tree with the “perfect shape” at Joe’s Tree’s in December 2010.

Corprew cut it with a handsaw and - for a reason he can’t remember - removed his gloves. He dragged the Fraser fir to a nearby trail, where a tractor picked it up and took it to the front of the farm.

Corprew and Teresa rode a trailer with a man dressed as Santa Claus to the same location.

When Corprew loaded the tree into the bed of his Ford F-350, he noticed his yellow and white gold wedding band was missing from his left ring finger.

Corprew had bought the wedding band in the summer of 2008 from Ginger’s Jewellery in Roanoke for about US$1100.

The yellow and white gold wedding band that was found at Joe’s Trees in June — 15 years after Wayne Corprew lost it in Newport, Virginia. Photo / Wayne Corprew, the Washington Post

Corprew searched every nook and cranny in his truck before reporting it missing to Bostic.

Corprew placed the tree beside a window in his living room in Roanoke, but he returned to the farm the next day with a metal detector to search the ground, which was covered by a few centimetres of snow. He and Bostic’s son, Jake, searched again in the following months to no avail.

“That was literally like trying to look for a needle in a haystack,” Bostic said.

In the summer of 2011, Corprew gave up and bought an identical wedding band.

Still, Corprew’s mother, Jean Bowman, visited the farm in the following years to ask about it. Corprew still looked for the ring whenever he cleaned his car.

The wedding band lost sentimental value to Corprew when he got divorced in September 2013.

But the farm did not give up. When Bostic sold the business to her nephew, Darren Gilreath, in April 2018, she told him to never lose the note.

From left: Darren Gilreath, Samantha Gilreath, Wayne Corprew and Sue Bostic. Photo / Robert Elmore, the Washington Post

“This is important,” she recalled telling him. “If you ever find this ring, you need to keep this.”

The note remained on the bulletin board even as Gilreath and his wife, Samantha Gilreath, pinned thank you cards, family photos and other mementos there.

Corprew remarried in December 2022 and now wears a black and blue titanium wedding ring.

Last month, Darren, 47, tilled parts of the farm’s pumpkin patch. Amid the smell of hay, fresh cut grass and evergreen trees on a hot and sunny day, Samantha was planting corn along a tilled row on June 11 when she spotted a small ring covered in dirt.

Samantha Gilreath found the wedding band in a field near the end of this trail. Photo / Sue Bostic, the Washington Post

“The thought never crossed our mind to not return it,” said Samantha, 43.

The next day, Darren looked through a handful of lost-and-found notes - from missing bracelets, necklaces, rings, credit cards and glasses - on the bulletin board.

He found the note with Corprew’s name near the back. Darren said he wasn’t sure if the phone number would still work.

Corprew was driving for his job delivering expedited freight when he answered the phone and Darren asked Corprew to describe the ring he lost. Corprew recited the inscription inside the ring: “WITH THIS RING I THEE WED.”

Samantha Gilreath spotted the ring in the dirt while she was planting corn along a tilled row on June 11. Photo / Darren Gilreath, the Washington Post

When Corprew picked up the ring the next day, the Gilreaths showed him the spot they found it. Corprew recognised the spot as the same place he cut the tree in 2010.

Corprew doesn’t know what he’ll do with the ring. He might sell it, but he’s also considering keeping it. He has a great story to tell about it.

At the farm, there are still a handful of missing items the Gilreaths are searching for.

Finding Corprew’s ring “leaves hope” they’ll locate the others too, Darren said, even if it takes another decade or two.