Spring Break
Class ring back to owner after 1.5 years in sewer
By: Jackson Crews
Issue date: 9/10/07 Section: News
When Melba Jaramillo lost her UA class ring down the kitchen sink at her Tucson home, she never expected to see it again.
Her father, a plumber, said it probably hadn't gone far and instructed her not to run any water down the drain until he could try to retrieve it, she said.
She forgot, and the ring slipped further down the drain.
"I was upset and I was depressed just because it was actually a gift," she said. "My parents bought it for me when I graduated."
On Aug. 23 - a year and a half after it slipped away into the sewer - the ring was delivered back to its owner.
Now a second-year graduate student in cancer biology, Jaramillo was in class when her mentor, Dr. Margaret Briehl, entered, interrupted the instructor and told her that she had important news to deliver, Jaramillo said.
"I see this man with Dr. Briehl and with my other mentor, Dr. Tome, and they were all standing together and he tells me that he's from Pima County WasteWater and that he has my ring," she said.
She said she was so overjoyed that her class heard her celebrating in the hallway.
Robert Layden, a Pima County utility worker, had discovered the ring after cleaning sewer lines in the vicinity of the UA campus with a vacuum truck. Layden said when he emptied the truck at the Ina Road treatment facility later that day, he found Jaramillo's ring amongst the sludge.
Jaramillo said the ring holds special significance because she is the first person in her family to graduate from college. She graduated from the UA in 2005 with a Bachelor of Science in molecular and cellular biology and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish linguistics.
Scratched and a little bent, the ring still bears a red ruby, an image of Old Main and an inscription of Jaramillo's name on the inside. The inscription, Layden said, is what enabled him to return the ring to her.
Her father, a plumber, said it probably hadn't gone far and instructed her not to run any water down the drain until he could try to retrieve it, she said.
She forgot, and the ring slipped further down the drain.
"I was upset and I was depressed just because it was actually a gift," she said. "My parents bought it for me when I graduated."
On Aug. 23 - a year and a half after it slipped away into the sewer - the ring was delivered back to its owner.
Now a second-year graduate student in cancer biology, Jaramillo was in class when her mentor, Dr. Margaret Briehl, entered, interrupted
I see this man with Dr. Briehl and with my other mentor, Dr. Tome, and they were all standing together and he tells me that he's from Pima County WasteWater and that he has my ring.
- Melba Jaramillo,
cancer biology graduate student
"I see this man with Dr. Briehl and with my other mentor, Dr. Tome, and they were all standing together and he tells me that he's from Pima County WasteWater and that he has my ring," she said.
She said she was so overjoyed that her class heard her celebrating in the hallway.
Robert Layden, a Pima County utility worker, had discovered the ring after cleaning sewer lines in the vicinity of the UA campus with a vacuum truck. Layden said when he emptied the truck at the Ina Road treatment facility later that day, he found Jaramillo's ring amongst the sludge.
Jaramillo said the ring holds special significance because she is the first person in her family to graduate from college. She graduated from the UA in 2005 with a Bachelor of Science in molecular and cellular biology and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish linguistics.
Scratched and a little bent, the ring still bears a red ruby, an image of Old Main and an inscription of Jaramillo's name on the inside. The inscription, Layden said, is what enabled him to return the ring to her.
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