It’s a hopeless feeling when a special item goes missing, but every now and then, items get found and returned to their rightful owner and hope restored.

Such is the case with Steven Hafner, a painter at Columbia Generating Station, who was recently reunited with the wedding ring he lost 21 years ago.

“My co-worker and fellow painter, Bernard Santillan, walked into my office last month and held out a ring in front of me,” Hafner said.

“That’s my wedding ring where did you find it?”

Santillan found the ring earlier that day as the painters at Columbia were re-painting the sump basins inside building 113. After the floor gratings were removed, Santillan reached back into a corner to pull out some peeling paint chips and noticed a shiny, multi-diamond ring. He showed the ring to the other painters, and one of them recalled that Hafner had once lost a ring.

Hafner last saw his ring 21 years ago when he placed it in his pants pocket prior to mixing a two-part epoxy paste and heading out to a job. As he was walking to another building to put the cans of epoxy away, he reached into his pocket to pull out keys to unlock the building door. Hafner guesses this was when the wedding ring must have fallen out of his pocket and slipped through the floor grating until it landed in its resting spot, where Santillan discovered it.

“I can’t count the number of times I traced my path between the two buildings looking for my ring,” Hafner said.

“I looked under staircases leading up into my office and down into the gravel between the two buildings. I looked under the building and down between the grating on the floor but never found my ring.”

Hafer was thrilled (as was his wife) when Santillan found the ring, but he was also touched by his co-worker’s honesty. He offered to give him a monetary reward for returning the wedding ring, but Santillan declined.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you Ben for your honesty and integrity,” Hafner said.

Steven Hafner (left) of Columbia Generating Station’s Maintenance department thanks co-worker Ben Santillan for discovering and returning his wedding ring lost 21 years ago. (Photo courtesy Steven Hafner)