Woman gets lost wedding ring back a year later

COPPERAS COVE, TX (KTRK) -- It took a year, but a Texas woman finally got her wedding ring back with the honesty of a few department store workers.

"Everything happens for a reason," Sonya James-Stewart told KWTX-TV about losing her wedding ring in the Copperas Cove Bealls department store a year ago.

"Probably about five minutes being in the store, I noticed I had lost my ring," she recalled.

Right away, she told assistant manager Elly McGruder about the lost ring.

"We looked everywhere," McGruder remembers.

Despite their best efforts, the women couldn't find the ring -- until the next morning, when Karen Tanner was cleaning the store.

"I was just vacuuming, and I bent down and I saw something real shiny, like up under there, so I bent down and picked it up," said Tanner.

That's when she brought the ring to McGruder, who knew exactly who it belonged to.

"Ms. Karen found the ring. She just happened to go to the one person, Ms. Elly, that i had told i had lost a ring," James-Stewart said.

But, McGruder hadn't gotten the ring owner's last name or phone number, and James-Stewart says she was convinced she had lost it during a trip to Austin earlier that day.

"I know she will be in someday. And believe me, every day I thought about it, I said, 'Maybe today she's coming in.' Held that ring for almost 13 months."

This Monday, James-Stewart and McGruder finally crossed paths.

"I couldn't control my words, I couldn't control the tears, and all I wanted to do was hug her," said James-Stewart.