When Chad Beesley and a buddy were metal detecting in Freetown recently, he had no idea he was about to find a missing treasure.

What Beesley found in the woods might not seem like a treasure to most people, but it did for Vickie Brown Hubbard of Leesville because it was her class key and had been missing for more than 30 years.

Hubbard said she had signed into Facebook one afternoon last week, and while checking her messages, she read a notification from a friend about something a man had shared on a Freetown group page.

“It was a Brownstown Central class key from 1974, and in the back were the initials VSB, and my maiden name is Brown,” she said. “This guy, John French, and his friend were metal detecting in a field near Hoosier National Forest and found it.”

Hubbard said she messaged French and told him it had to be hers, but she had no clue how it would have gotten out there.

“I thought it had gotten lost when we moved over 30 years ago when we moved from just north of Jonesville to Leesville, just across the county line in Lawrence County,” she said. “So we weren’t anywhere near that area when we moved.”

Hubbard told French the only person she had graduated with with the initials VB was Vaughn Blevins, and she didn’t know what his middle name is.

“I gave John our phone number so Chad could call me, and when he did, my husband (Nick) and I went to Medora to pick it up,” she said. “Chad is a very nice person, and I’ve seen him at the Leesville store a few times and I know his mother-in-law, Judi.”

Hubbard said she and Beesley had a nice little visit there on the front porch.

“You hear stories like this on Facebook all the time, but you never think about it happening to you,” she said. “When Chad gave me the key, I hugged him three times before we left. I was so happy, so very happy, to get it back, and I am so grateful to John and Chad for putting it out there that they had found it.”

Hubbard said she also is grateful to her friend, Pam Grant, for sending her a copy of the Facebook post.

“That key is almost 50 years old, and I’m still trying to figure out how it got way out there,” she said. “When we lived on Ninth Street there in Seymour, Nick and I went hunting out that way, I think. That has been a long, long time ago.”

Hubbard said her class ring was stolen years ago, and she thought maybe her class key had been taken, too, but she thought she might have had it after that.

“The class key was in pretty good shape, but most of the color is gone from it. There’s just a speck of black on one side and a speck of red on the other,” she said. “I contacted Jostens and told them the story, and they’d like a picture of the key and want to talk about repairing it for me.”

Beesley said he and French both study old plat maps and find where old houses used to be but are just wooded areas now, and they go hunting there.

“Recently, we were hunting about 2 miles back in the woods in Freetown on a buddy’s property where there hadn’t been a house there since the 1920s,” he said. “I found a 1974 class key from Brownstown Central High School there and have no idea why it was there.”

He explained how French posted about the class key on Facebook and it had the initials VSB.

“Someone mentioned Vickie’s name and that she had graduated in ‘74, and come to find out, it had been missing,” Beesley said. “I found it the Sunday before last, and she contacted me on a Tuesday and came to my house with her husband and was ecstatic to have her class key back after so many years.”

He said the Minelab metal detector he uses cost about $1,500, and he currently has 13 metal detectors, which he purchased from Wray’s Treasure Shop in Seymour.

“I enjoy finding coins and other things, but when you can make somebody’s day like that, it’s all worth it, and I’m happy for her,” Beesley said.

He said his father-in-law, Terry McKinney, was one of the first people in Indiana to have a metal detector and built it himself right after he finished serving in the U.S. Air Force.

“He actually got the owner of Wray’s Treasure Shop in Freetown to start selling metal detectors there, and they still do today,” he said. “My father-in-law wanted to get me into metal detecting, and at first, I wasn’t sure if I’d like it or not, but I’ve always had an interest in history.”

Beesley decided to give metal detecting a try and went with McKinney one day to Starve Hollow State Recreation Area in Vallonia and they hunted the beach.

“I found a gold ring the very first day I was there, and I was hooked after that,” he said. “About four years ago, my father-in-law passed away of leukemia, but before he passed, he told me how he had planted that ring so I’d find it, and he knew I’d be hooked if I found that.”

Beesley is a 1997 graduate of Medora High School, born and raised in Jackson County. He is the son of Gene and Ruth Beesley and has a twin brother, Nathan Beesley. His wife’s name is Kristina, and they have two children, Jalen and Katie. Beesley has worked at Aisin for 26 years and is a technician in the maintenance department.

“Kristina and my mother-in-law, Judi McKinney, metal detect, and many of my friends do, too,” he said. “We have a club in Freetown, as well, at Wray’s called the Hoosier Hills Treasure Hunters Club, which has around 25 members, and we meet there at 1:30 p.m. on the first Sunday of every month, and we plant coins and show what we’ve found.”

Beesley said he has been blessed with finding a lot of things, like old coins, rings, cap guns, Civil War bullets, military buttons and badges and a little bit of everything.

“My personal favorite, probably not really worth anything, is a token we found from a canning factory in Medora that said ‘Rider Packing Company, Medora, Indiana, good for one whole tomato,’” he said. “Back in the early 1900s, folks didn’t have a lot of money, so they got tokens to barter for things, and the token I found is priceless to me, and I wouldn’t sell it for anything.”