People love a good "lost ring" story, especially when they feel like they can help.

Herb Knudsen's phone started ringing Friday morning after the story ran in the newspaper about the Kamehameha Schools ring he found in the water at Sandy Beach. Old friends called to say hello, people who knew the owner of the ring called to give tips and there were lots of random calls from people who wanted to see if he had found something they had lost in the water somewhere.

On the other end of the story, Kristi Agpalsa Makekau had just set up her Facebook page four days before the story about her class ring was printed. On Friday, her Facebook page "exploded" with classmates, friends and relatives telling her that her long-lost class of 1991 ring had been found.

"It's about more than a ring," Knudsen said. "A ring is a symbol of things going around, a continuous circle. It brings back people into your life, contacts, people you knew."

Knudsen and Makekau spoke on the phone on Saturday, and she told him the story. The ring was indeed lost at Sandy Beach 17 years ago, but she wasn't the one who was wearing it.

"Her husband had it on a chain, and he was the one who lost it. Well, not husband, but her boyfriend at the time. And she still married him," Knudsen joked.

Knudsen has a collection of things he's found in the water over the years, and he has a collection of stories of giving them back to their owners. His buddies love the one about the time he found dentures while diving. He got out of the water and was washing them off in the beach shower when a guy spotted them and said something like, "Hey, that's Gordon's teeth!" Gordon was eventually reunited with his teeth and brought Knudsen a case of beer as a mahalo.

Knudsen once found a Punahou class ring at Sherwood Forest. When he located the owner by phone, he told the man, "I found your class ring." It was quiet for a long time before the man responded, "But I'm wearing it."

It turned out, years earlier, the man's sister went to pick up his class ring from the school. She lost it at the beach before ever giving it to him and had ordered a new one to make good.

There is just something satisfying about returning a lost ring and completing the circle. Makekau and Knudsen met earlier this week to make the exchange. "After all these years," Knudsen said, "the ring still fit."