Ashleigh Alexander ’11 had come to terms with a great loss. Her Emma Willard signet ring, a tangible symbol of her four years on Mount Ida, was just a memory, resting somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Then an email landed in her inbox from Director of Alumnae Relations Jennifer Tobin—a message forwarded from a beachcomber in Bermuda. He had found Ashleigh’s ring.

The story of the ring’s loss dates back to a 2017 carnival beach party. “Silly me kept all my jewelry on,” Ashleigh says. “We were all standing in the ocean, and someone vaulted a volleyball my way. I remember throwing my hand up, trying to block it. It wasn’t until I got home that day that I realized my ring was gone.” She was devastated. “I mourned it for the rest of the trip,” she says. “I thought I’d never see that ring again.” 

The ring was part of her standard wardrobe. “I treasured my Emma ring. When it comes to jewelry, I’m a minimalist, so for the longest time, it was just two bracelets from my grandmother and my Emma ring.”

The loss was particularly profound because it was a ring she almost didn’t receive. “I actually thought I wasn’t going to be able to get a ring; my family couldn’t afford it,” Ashleigh shares. Her advisor, Judy Bridges, let her know that funds were available for just such an occasion—what the school calls “The Fairy Godmother Fund.” When the ring arrived, it was perfect. “It actually has ridges around the band, which I don’t think I was supposed to get—no one else in my class had them.” That unique detail made it feel customized. The words “Die Hard” were engraved inside the band in celebration of her four years at Emma Willard. 

Those years, from 2007 to 2011, were formative for Ashleigh. Arriving from the Bronx, her first roommate was from Egypt. “I was excited to live with folks who came from different parts of the world,” she said. Ashleigh was a math kid and has fond memories of her success in AP Calculus with Mr. Nielsen, and thoroughly enjoyed her Spanish and AP French classes as well. She was deeply involved in all forms of dance, JSG, proctoring, and the Black Hispanic Alliance (BHA). 

The spirit of service Ashleigh cultivated at Emma first sent her into educational spaces doing juvenile social work, and now defines her career in corporate philanthropy at IAC. Managing a fellowship program, scholarships, and hardship relief funds for the company’s vast network of employees—plus coordinating grants, grantee relationships, and corporate volunteer opportunities—has been a great fit. “My spirit is aligned with social impact,” she says. 

Ashleigh was busy doing this work when she received Jennifer’s forwarded message from Andrew Roberts of Bermuda Diggers. “I was on cloud nine,” Ashleigh recalls, “I went around to everybody saying I’d just received the best email!” 

Andrew unearthed Ashleigh’s ring while looking for someone else’s back in 2018. Since then, it sat on his shelf of finds that he was unable to return to their rightful owners. He reports on Instagram that he conducted multiple internet searches and called numerous schools across the US, the UK, and the Caribbean, looking for its owner. Finally, years after the find, he did a successful image search for the Willard family coat of arms and called the school. 

After receiving Andrew’s call, Jennifer located two points of contact for Ashleigh in the school database: her email address from college days at Tufts, and an old AOL address. She took a chance on both, and the Tufts forwarding was miraculously still in place!

“I was so excited to hear from Andrew and be able to connect him to Ashleigh. Traditions—especially class rings—are so important to our alumnae, and I knew getting the ring back to Ashleigh would be so meaningful,” Jennifer recalls. “Let this be a lesson to everyone: make sure we have your latest contact info in case we ever need to share great news with you!”

After the connection was made, it was just a matter of getting the ring from Bermuda to New York—a saga of its own. Items of a certain value cannot be mailed from Bermuda to the US, so Ashleigh had to rely on her network of friends to help the ring find its way home. After being passed from Andrew to one of Ashleigh’s Bermudian friends, who happened to be stopping through New York City on a layover, she was finally reunited with her beloved Emma ring in October 2025, more than eight years after it flew into the sea. 

This article was originally written for the Fall 2025/Winter 2026 edition of Signature magazine.

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