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Jun 20, 2023

Good Samaritans, armed with metal detectors, recover lost wedding ring

CHILTON (WKOW) -- A recent outing to a local festival turned into heartbreak for

CHILTON (WKOW) -- A recent outing to a local festival turned into heartbreak for a Denmark woman.

After returning from Beer Fest in Chilton, she discovered she had lost her wedding ring.

At the end of April, Mike and Mindy Johnson celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary.

A few weeks ago, they joined a group of friends at the Wisconsin Micro-Brewers Beer Festival at the Calumet County fairgrounds.

Mindy said she took off her wedding ring to put on sunscreen and forgot to put it back on. She didn't realize until she got home that night.

She turned to Facebook with a plea. "It was a last-ditch effort," Johnson told our affiliate WBAY.

In the post, she described what had happened, where she thought she lost the ring, and a picture of it.

By that afternoon, the post had 1,300 shares. One of the people who saw it was Jennifer Finley from Chilton.

"And saw that she had lost her ring and I’m like, ‘Oh, Randy, that's at the fairgrounds. It's right uptown. Go look for it," says Jennifer Finley.

Her husband Randy and another friend, Ross Baltz, took metal detectors to the fairgrounds.

"Probably wasn't here 10 minutes and Ross showed up, and we started going really good at it, and probably another minute after that, that's when I found the ring," says Randy Finley.

"I was out with some girlfriends from high school for dinner, and I got a message from someone I did not know saying ‘We found your ring,’" says Johnson.

Shocked and full of gratitude, Johnson headed for Chilton.

"I was emotional, and I hugged them multiple times, and yeah, it was pretty crazy that complete strangers went to the fairgrounds and went to look for my ring," says Johnson.

"It was humbling to give the ring back and her to meet us and pull in the driveway and tears coming out of her eyes. I mean, it's 25 years of marriage," says Baltz.