The Golden Rule has a nice ring to it

By Mary Garrigan, Journal staff | Wednesday, January 17, 2007

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Cindy Rigsby loves to explore Rapid City’s antique shops and second-hand stores, often returning to her Sturgis home with a shopping bag bulging with pretty things.

But the diamond engagement ring Rigsby found nestled among the glass bowls she bought Dec. 30 at the St. Joe Antique Mall and Gift Shop in Rapid City was an especially shiny surprise.

“I unwrapped a bowl and noticed the ring. I wondered who in the world dropped this plastic, gumball-machine ring into my bag,” Rigsby said.

Closer inspection of the distinctive, pear-shaped diamond quickly revealed that it was no fake.

The ring, it turned out, belonged to Teresa Wellendorf of Rapid City, but it took a little detective work and a lot of luck before Wellendorf got it back Jan. 3.

Wellendorf, 41, had received the ring a week earlier, when her fiance, Heath Epperson, proposed on Christmas Eve. Epperson runs the antiques store, where Wellendorf helps out on Saturdays.

“We were busy that day, and I didn’t notice it until 7:30 that night that the ring wasn’t on my finger,” Wellendorf said. “I panicked. My heart fell to the bottom of my feet.”

After scouring the antiques store for the diamond with no success, the couple decided the most logical place her loose-fitting ring could be was in some unsuspecting customer’s bag.

“We had put the word out about what had happened,” Epperson said, but they worried that one of two things would occur — neither of them good.

“My fear was that it would just get tossed out with the bag if no one noticed it,” Wellendorf said. Worse yet, she worried that if someone did find it, they would be far less diligent about returning it to its rightful owner than Rigsby was.

Meanwhile, Rigsby had placed all of her purchases from the day into one bag, mixing items from several stores, and did not unpack it until Sunday, New Year’s Eve. With the New Year’s holiday on Monday, she had to wait until Tuesday to call about the ring she had found. She started with Trader’s Corner, another second-hand store she had visited on Dec. 30.

“I called Trader’s Corner and asked, ‘Did anyone lose any jewelry?’” Rigsby said.

No one there had, but later, Rigsby’s phone rang with the news that Wellendorf was looking for her lost engagement ring.

“Within 45 minutes, Teresa was at my door,” Rigsby said.

Rigsby, 58, believes in living by the Golden Rule. She is retired from a career with the Department of Veterans Affairs and now works at a Sturgis casino, Mike’s Place. The idea of keeping the ring never occurred to her, she said. “No, I try and put myself in her place. I told her, ‘Wear it in health and, by the way, get it downsized.’”

Wellendorf, who had spent a miserable few days worrying about her ring, called Rigsby “wonderful.”

“I started crying. We need more people like that in this world,” she said.

Epperson and Wellendorf, who have not set a wedding date, are thrilled and thankful. They sent Rigsby, who collects Depression glass and has some of it for sale at St. Joe Antique Mall, a thank-you gift. And Epperson has offered her lifetime free consignment on any of her collection that she sells at his shop.

“That’s one thing I can do for her,” he said.

Contact Mary Garrigan at 394-8410 or mary.garrigan@rapidcityjournal.com