A town’s love shines bright: how the city of Southport came together to search for a missing ring piece

SOUTHPORT, NC (WWAY) — A Wilmington woman got a late Christmas miracle after she lost a piece of a very sentimental ring.

Nancy Nicholl O’Neill was out shopping in Southport with her husband on December 22nd when she noticed that a piece of her ring was missing.

It was a combination of 3 rings that had belonged to her mother and grandmother.

O’Neill made a post about it on a Southport Facebook page asking for help and the community came out in force.

Hundreds of people commented on the post, saying they would do anything they could to try and find the missing piece.

“Some offered and went out with metal detectors,” O’Neill said. “People were like ‘where were you, I’m going to town tomorrow?’ They walked the entire town, they messaged me like ‘We’ve looked everywhere.’ And the amount of people that offered up prayers.”

O’Neill said the outpouring of support was unbelievable to see.

“Oh, it was, it was, it brought tears to my eyes every day. Like the outpouring of this town is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. It’s making me teary-eyed.”

It wasn’t until January 2nd that the piece was found, in a very easy-to-miss location at The Pearl store on Howe Street.

“I was passing by the dressing room door and something caught my eye like a little glimmer and I backed up and looked in the room,” Sandy Morris, an employee at the Pearl said. “And down in the corner where the door frame and the baseboard meet was something. And I went in and picked it up and it was the diamond ring, part of it.”

After the ring was found, Hanna McCullough, another employee at The Pearl, searched on Facebook for a way to get in contact with Nancy to let her know it had been found.

“It just means there’s hope that, you know, we still have so many good people still left in town and that honest people still left around the area.,” McCullough said.

“Anybody at the store, if they had found it, would have done the same thing. They would have given it and Hanna would have found the person,” Morris said.

The support O’Neill received has left a lasting impression on her.

“In fact, I said to my husband, I think we should move to Southport. I would love to do that. Maybe in a couple years.”

A Southport jeweler helped repair Nancy’s ring and she picked it up earlier this week.