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AMATEUR SLEUTH RETURNS LOST JEWELRY

By Jeannie Nugent/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Friday, June 29, 2007 10:09 AM CDT

There are two plastic tubs on 79-year-old Josie Graves’ front porch. The containers are stuffed to the brim with treasures she has unearthed in her decades of walking her Pine Bluff neighborhood streets each day.

She isn’t consciously on the lookout for the loot, she says, but the items just seem to jump out at her.

“I find things all the time. I found a little beaded purse one time. It had 33 pennies, a dime and a paper clip in it,” she says, holding her forefinger and thumb together as if she can still feel the change purse in her hands. “And I always pick up the tacks or screws so nobody will run over them.”

Her hobby doesn’t stop at treasure hunting, though; she is also an amateur sleuth.

When she lost one of her favorite gold hoop earrings recently, Graves began searching through her jewelry chests. She found the earring and also discovered a forgotten class ring that she had found in 1987 when she and a friend were walking on Tulip Street.

Graves was overcome with an urgency to find the rightful owner. She enlisted the help of her friend Anna McClain to search through old yearbooks for a name matching the inscription “ALR” on the inside of the band.

Later, Graves says she had to gasp for breath when a news item jumped out at her from the pages of The Commercial. It detailed plans for the upcoming reunion for the Pine Bluff High School Class of 1977 and listed Arlene Lazetta (Rice) Woody as the contact person.

Graves knew her mystery had been solved.

She called three times, but could only reach Woody’s husband, James. Graves refused to leave her name, insisting on waiting to speak to her directly.

Woody laughs at the memory. The persistent phone calls didn’t stand out, she says, because she was in the midst of helping to organize the reunion. Finally, on a recent Saturday morning Woody answered the phone to Graves’ excited, but restrained voice.

“All she said was ‘Tell me a little about your reunion.’ I remember thinking that she was one of the parents wanting some information,” Woody says.

Eventually, after more probing, Graves asked Woody to describe her class ring. She obliged, describing the November birthstone, the zebra etched on the side and even told Graves that her parents had paid about $150 for it.

Crinkles appear around Graves’ eyes and the corners of her lips curve mischievously as Woody tells the story.

“I asked ‘What would it mean to you to have your ring back?’” Graves says.

“I screamed ‘You have my ring?’” Woody chimes in. Then she asked Graves how much she was going to charge for it.

“I said ‘Nothing! You come on and get your ring.’” Graves finishes, laughter bubbling forth as she claps her hands together.

Woody jumped in her car. The two women spent more than two hours talking about the ring and discovered that their lives had been entwined all along. Today, Woody works as the manager of consumer support at AT&T in Little Rock. She began her career with the company at its Pine Bluff facility in 1980.

“I kept looking at her and saying ‘Your name sounds so familiar.’ I remembered her face then I said ‘Did you work for the phone company?’” Woody says.

Graves was employed by the company from 1946 to 1983 and Woody is acquainted with Graves’ son Dennis Corley, who still works at the Pine Bluff office. Another coincidence is that Graves’ late husband’s name is Woodrow Graves — he was known throughout his life simply as “Woody.”

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