Zanikos had never heard of Dietzel before he picked up the phone that day. Now, he says he'll never forget her.

Dietzel is an audiologist at Saint Francis Hospital's Center for Communication Disorders. Her duties include reconditioning discarded hearing aids, which are then donated to people who otherwise could not afford them.

About a month ago, Dietzel had some free time, so she was helping other staff members open packets of old hearing aids sent to the center by local Lions Clubs.

One of the packets Dietzel opened contained two hearing aids and a diamond ring.

"I said, 'Holy cow!' and closed the box," Dietzel recalled. "Then I opened it again, looked inside and realized, yes, I really did see a diamond ring."

Dietzel began the task for tracking down the owner. It wasn't easy.

The Bronx company that made the hearing aid was no longer in business. Dietzel did a little research and found out a company in Minnesota, Starkey Laboratories, had bought out the Bronx firm.

When Dietzel called Starkey and gave a sales representative the serial number of the hearing aid, she found out it had been sold to a hearing aid retailer in White Plains. When Dietzel got that retailer on the phone and told her why she was calling, she was given Nick Zanikos' phone number in Hyde Park.

Dietzel dialed the number, and when Zanikos answered, she told him, "I feel a little strange doing this, but I found a diamond ring that belongs to your family and I'd like to return it."

Zanikos said he was stunned by the phone call. Then he pieced together what had happened.

Great sentimental value

"It's my Mom's engagement ring," he said. "Before she died, she had a stroke, and when she went to the hospital, we took off her hearing aid and her jewelry. After Mom died, in 2004, we donated her hearing aids to the Lions Club. The ring must have been in the box."

Zanikos said the main stone in the ring was cubic zirconium, so it wasn't particularly valuable — except as a family heirloom.

"It has plenty of sentimental value, and the fact that someone would go to all this trouble to track me down, well, I was very touched by [Dietzel's] efforts," he said.

"I'm thankful to the Lions Club for their efforts for the poor, and I'm thankful to Ms. Dietzel," Zanikos said. "There are good people in the world. They are the majority, and usually they don't get noticed."

Dietzel said she was just glad she was able to track down the Zanikos family.

"They were so excited, they brought me an arrangement of flowers and told me I had given them a Christmas present," she said. "But believe me, they gave me my Christmas, too."

By Larry Fisher-Hertz
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051227/COLUMNISTS02/512270323