ENDERLIN (AP) - Dee Lemna's Cavalier High School class ring tumbled to the bottom of a lake just before her senior year.

She didn't expect it would ever turn up. She had ample time to get over the disappointment of losing it.

So when a stranger tracked her down in Enderlin to return the ring more than 25 years later, the famously chatty Lemna was momentarily speechless.

She was gaining a weathered memento of her high school years and a renewed belief in the outsized power of small acts of kindness.

"I haven't taken it off since I got it back," Lemna said. "I'm really, really glad there are still nice and honest people out there."

In the summer of 1982, Lemna was drying off after a swim in Golden Lake, near Hatton, and noticed her gold-and-topaz class ring had slipped off.

She and her friends waded back in the water and hunted for hours. When dusk fell over the lake, she reluctantly called off the search.

"I was heartbroken because it was my dream ring," Lemna said. "I pled, begged, cried and threw fits to get it."

Dennis Flom of Argusville, who enjoys scouring lakes with a metal detector while his young daughter takes swims, recently found the engraved ring and then was able to track down its owner.