Lost for 60 years, ring turns up in dry Texas lake

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — An 84-year-old Washington state woman will soon hold her 1953 university class ring, lost six decades ago, after it was found in a dried-up West Texas lake.

Elizabeth Clark lost her Howard Payne University class ring in 1954 in Lake Nasworthy near San Angelo when she and her future husband went for a picnic and waded into the water. Clark said she wasn't certain where she had lost the ring — after discovering it was missing, she looked around her home before going back to search at the lake.

After years of drought, the ring revealed itself in the lake bed and it was found in March. Someone from the school's alumni association drove to San Angelo to retrieve the ring and was able to identify it from the initials — AEL for Addie Elizabeth Little — inside the band.

"I worked hard for that ring," Clark said. "I'm grateful it was found and that it was in good shape after 60 years."

The ring, which is 10-karat gold with a blue stone, needed some cleaning up by a local jeweler.

Clark's daughter, Donna Clark-Love of Houston, said her mother was delighted.

"She cried, she was just couldn't believe it," she said. "This was like the highlight of her life. She is just thrilled."

Clark, one of 16 children, was the only one who finished college. She got her degree in elementary education and taught fifth grade in California for the Santa Anna Unified School District, where he daughter said she won a teacher of the year award.

The ring will be returned to Clark at a family reunion Friday in her hometown of Brownfield, about 40 miles southwest of Lubbock. The woman who found the ring, Lindsay Waddell, will present it to Clark.

"I think she's more excited about getting the ring back than coming to the reunion," Clark-Love said.

Clark, who remains in contact with many of her college friends, couldn't wait to tell them the good news, Clark-Love said.

"She got on the horn and called everybody," her daughter said.

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Boeing turns aging planes into drones for Air Force target practice

What should the U.S. Air Force do with its aging fleet of aircraft? After all, the aircraft boneyard is already pretty crowded.

How about using them for target practice?

Boeing has been turning outdated planes into unmanned drones that the Air Force can use in targeting drills.

The Daily Mail reports that Boeing has successfully converted six F-16 fighter jets into drones, allowing the aircraft to take off and fly without a pilot. Boeing says it’s the first time a F-16 has flown unmanned.

“It’s a replication of current, real world situations and aircraft platforms they can shoot as a target,” U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Ryan Inman, Commander of the 82nd Aerial Targets Squadron said in a release. “Now we have a 9G capable, highly sustainable aerial target.”

The jets had all previously been retired and were residing at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. Boeing restored the jets and added the necessary equipment to allow them to fly as drones.

The renamed “QF-16 Full Scale Aerial Target” are now set to be used in combat drills at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, with two Air Force test pilots controlling the target craft from the ground. In the future, the unmanned planes will also be used for weapons testing.

“I love the F-16 and brag about it a lot — and now to get something ready to take off on its own, so somebody else can shoot it down, makes it a little bittersweet in my eyes,” U.S. Air Force test pilot Jason Clements said in a video released by Boeing.

Air Force officials say they will now be used in fire drills at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

And to get a sense of just how sophisticated the drone controls are, considering that the planes not only took off and landed without a pilot, they actually reached supersonic speeds and simulated combat maneuvers during the test drills.

Stars and Stripes adds that during the first drone test flights, the modified F-16’s reached heights of 40,000 feet and completed several barrel rolls at 7G before returning to the ground.

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Left-hand turns can cost you

With a delivery fleet of 96,173 package cars, vans, tractors, and motorcycles, the United Parcel Service or UPS knows a great deal about efficient driving. WAGA Fox 5 News interviewed UPS dispatch supervisor Matthew Frost to learn about some of the Fortune 500 company’s driving tips. Matthew said, “A lot of the managers here and supervisors here, they train their kids when they get of driving age and they train them the same way that we train our drivers here to keep ‘em safe. Because these are proven methods that work.” After 6 years behind the wheel of a brown truck, Matthew now helps plan out the drivers’ routes. “When we design routes, as we put them together, we want to try to design it where the drivers are taking a right-hand turn as many as possible.” The company has found that right-hand turns are not only safer, but they’re also more efficient. It’s a tip that AAA agrees with. By using routing technology and avoiding idling at lights for left-hand turns, UPS was able to avoid 98 million minutes of idle time in a year.

Other tips by the delivery giant include leaving at least one car length between you and the car stopped ahead of you to allow for reaction time. They advise using your eyes to scan the road and your mirrors. The dispatch supervisor said, “We train our drivers to check a mirror every five to eight seconds. Then check back to the front, then check another mirror, back to the front.” In addition to all of that, the drivers are given training drills to keep their minds sharp.

Matthew told WAGA that UPS has, "110,000 drivers. We log 3 billion miles a year and we average less than one accident per 1 million miles." That safe driving record is enforced with drivers undergoing 1 week of the company’s training after which they are allowed to get behind the wheel of a truck. UPS is proud of their Circle of Honor club with 6,400 drivers who all have 25 years or more of safe driving.

More information: WAGA

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California man finds, turns in $6,900 in cash

VISALIA, Calif. (AP) — A California man is being praised for his honesty after he turned in $6,900 in cash he found near a Department of Motor Vehicles office in the Central Valley.

The money eventually was returned to its rightful owner.

Forty-six-year-old Breck Reeves told the Fresno Bee (http://bit.ly/18sTEfA) he spotted an envelope on the ground Aug. 6 while going to the Visalia DMV. Inside was a stack of $100 bills totaling $6,900.

Reeves says he might have kept the money if it had been $20 or so, but this was too much. He turned in the money at the DMV, and Visalia police eventually tracked down its rightful owner, 69-year-old retired farmworker Guadalupe Salazar.

Salazar had taken the money out of the bank to buy his son a new car. The envelope apparently fell out of Salazar's car when he opened the door.

Salazar plans to take the Reeves to dinner.

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Information from: The Fresno Bee, http://www.fresnobee.com

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Kenya co. turns old sandals into colorful objects

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The colorful handmade giraffes, elephants and warthogs made in a Nairobi workshop were once only dirty pieces of rubber cruising the Indian Ocean's currents.

Kenya's Ocean Sole sandal recycling company is cleaning the East African country's beaches of used, washed-up flip-flops and other sandals.

About 45 workers in Nairobi make 100 different products from the discarded flip-flops. In 2008, the company shipped an 18-foot giraffe to Rome for display during a fashion week.

Company founder Julie Church says the goal of her company is to create products that people want to buy, then make them interested in the back-story.

Workers wash the flip-flops, many of which show signs of multiple repairs. Artisans then glue together the various colors, carve the products, sand and rewash them.

Church first noticed Kenyan children turning flip-flops into toy boats around 1999, when she worked as a marine scientist for WWF and the Kenya Wildlife Service on Kenya's coast near the border with Somalia.

Turtles hatching on the beach had to fight their way through the debris on beaches to get to the ocean, Church said, and a plan to clean up the debris and create artistic and useful items gained momentum. WWF ordered 15,000 key rings, and her eco-friendly project took off.

It has not made Church rich, however. The company turns over about $150,000 a year, she said. Last year it booked a small loss.

But new investment money is flowing in, and the company is in the midst of rebranding itself from its former name — the FlipFlop Recycling Company — to Ocean Sole.

The company aims to sell 70 percent of its products outside Kenya. It has distributors in the United States, Europe and new inquiries from Japan. Its biggest purchasers are zoos and aquariums.

One of Church's employees is Dan Wambui, who said he enjoys interacting with visitors who come to the Nairobi workshop.

"They come from far ... when they see what we are doing we see them really happy and they are appreciating. We feel internationally recognized and we feel happy about it," Wambui said.

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On the Internet:

Ocean Sole: http://www.ocean-sole.com

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Boy's postcard mailed in 1967 turns in Oklahoma

PAULS VALLEY, Okla. (AP) — may have taken 46 years, but a boy card made home to MOM.

Bert Jacobson sent the postcard to his mother in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, in January 1967, when she was 13 years old. The paper, from the Old Country Store Museum in Hereford, Penn, arrived last Friday.

Jacobson told television station KOTV Tulsa (http://is.gd/5MzAmX) who traveled to the East Coast with his father and cousins to buy concrete trucks and equipment for the family business.

The postcard was sent by Abraham Lincoln stamp 4 cents. The card reads: "MOM, Hi. We had a great time. "

Jacobson's sister, Marilyn Hubbard, says their mother was not surprised that his son has sent a paper — only that it took 46 years to arrive.

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