Long lost ring traced to 95-year-old, and more

Long lost ring traced to 95-year-old

Twelve-year-old Luke Lytle and his brother, Sam, 8, were playing with their new metal detector last week in a playground in Diboll, Texas. That’s where they found, buried 6 inches down, a Class of 1937 gold ring from Stephen F. Austin Teachers College, engraved with the initials F.W. The boys briefly considered selling it, but instead traced it to 95-year-old Franklin Weeks of nearby Lufkin, who was thrilled to rediscover a keepsake he had lost decades earlier. Weeks rewarded them each with $20. “Keep on hunting,” he told the brothers. “Pretty soon you might find something you can keep.”

Violinist serenades doctors who saved his arm

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A violinist who nearly lost his arm has repaid the medical team that saved it by performing for them. Ken Wollberg of St. Louis was moonlighting as a trucker just after Christmas 2007 when he crashed his rig on a patch of ice. The accident shattered his left elbow, detaching the triceps muscle and shearing bone. Doctors at Barnes-Jewish Hospital weren’t sure if he would play again. But after two operations and months of therapy, Wollberg is back fiddling, and last week proved it by serenading the Barnes staff with several songs, including “Amazing Grace.” “It’s a way to share a beautiful thing,” he said.

Becoming a father at 111

Henry, a 111-year-old tuatara, has become a father for the first time. His rare species, which can live up to 250 years, is the last link to a line of reptiles that flourished 220 million years ago. When Henry’s keepers at a New Zealand zoo first tried to mate him, he bit off a girl tuatara’s tail. But when they removed a cancerous tumor beneath his genitals, his libido was restored and he mated with his companion, Mildred, in July. Last week, 11 of the 12 eggs they produced hatched. Curator Lindsay Hazley called it “the completion of a love story.”