TAMPA

Isabel Young was heartbroken when she lost her class ring in a sea of balls.

The Blake High School senior had been frolicking in the pit at the Beach Tampa, the free interactive art exhibit at Amalie Arena that the Vinik Family Foundation paid to bring to Tampa last August. Somewhere in the mass of antimicrobial spheres, the ring had slipped off her finger. She rummaged frantically for it, but it was gone.

Young, 17, paid $300 for a replacement. But a call from Sydney, Australia, this week had her "in shock and amazed" that eight months later, items are still being found. What lies beneath? Everything from expensive jewels to gold teeth.

Young was among 100,000 visitors who plunged into an all-white abyss of more than 1.2 million plastic balls created by Snarkitecture, a New York design firm. The venue provided lockers and warned people against bringing valuables in the pit. But, still, while they belly flopped, items flew out of pockets and sank beneath waves of balls.

The Amalie staff had 24 hours to clear the center of the arena before 20,000 screaming fans arrived to see Canadian crooner-rapper Drake. There were enough balls to fill 10 semitrailer trucks.

Once all the balls were gone, the detritus left behind was part revolting, part fascinating.

"It was like a treasure trove on the bottom," said Susan Danielik, the manager of guest services at the arena who oversees the venue's cache of found items.

There were piles of cellphones, wallets, eyeglasses, Fitbits and jewelry that washed up like ocean debris. One of the oddest finds was a hair extension with a gold tooth cap attached. Amalie staff have invented a whole scenario for this one: Maybe someone was swinging her hair around while someone else was laughing and the hair extension caught the gold grill, and they both fell out.

Every hockey game or concert at Amalie Arena yields at least one plastic bin the size of a copy paper box of lost items, Danielik said. But after the Beach Tampa, there were 12 big bins and 10 shoebox-sized ones, filled with everything from wedding rings to scores of broken sunglasses stepped on over the three-week event.

Using a team of interns and an Excel spread sheet, the Amalie staff spent weeks matching the lost with the found. There were so many pearl earrings, about 30 in all, they asked would-be claimants to provide a picture of themselves wearing the earrings.

Finding owners took some amateur detective work. Amalie staffers looked up Facebook pages. They used Spokeo, the website that aggregates personal data. But it is still hard to track down people who don't have a landline or a public Facebook account.

After 30 days, lost items are donated to charity. Unclaimed money is donated to the Lightning Foundation after 90 days, Danielik said. But she hangs on to things that seem extra special, like a wallet filled with photos from a 1940s-era wedding.

"This wallet is a story," she said. Though the lost and found department is just a small part of her job managing the premium guest services crew, "I geek out over it."

Those same white balls were dumped into an arena in Sydney, Australia, for a January run. The Australian crew also found a ruby ring, a Tiffany bracelet and a Dior watch. Eight items were mailed back to Tampa last week.

Danielik immediately recognized the ruby ring as one a distraught woman had reported missing. It looks vintage with an intricate gold band surrounding its ruby heart. But she hasn't been able to reach the owner yet. Isabel Young, the owner of the high school ring, was easy to find because her name was on the ring and they could call the school.

Danielik once found a wallet containing more than $500. Even though it was full of identification and credit cards, a business card tucked inside led to the wallet owner's sister. The wallet belonged to a student who was working two jobs, and the $560 inside was the Christmas money she had saved.

But it never occurred to her to call the arena looking for it.

"She told me, 'I just assumed someone took it,' " Danielik said. "Our big frustration is that people don't even report something lost so we can get it back to them. I think people have lost faith in the integrity of their fellow man."

The job has done the opposite for Danielik.

After the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus cleared out in January, the cleanup crew in the arena found a bag with seven $100 bills. Employees don't hesitate to turn in what they find, she said, and apparently those in Australia have the same ethic.

"To have that many honest people on staff, who just do the right thing, it's really heartening," Danielik said.

Meanwhile, mysteries remain at Amalie: There's a cane from the Bon Jovi show with red and yellow flame details. There's a pink Minnie Mouse doll found after Disney on Ice that looks a bit grubby, which tells Danielik it's much-loved.

Gabe Cohn, 22, one of Danielik's interns, likes using the tools he's learning in journalism class to find owners, especially of a recently found bag filled with diabetes medicine.

"My brother has Type 1 diabetes so I know how important that is."

Young said it was "mind-blowing" that not only did her high school ring show up, but that it was found half a world away, a true needle in the haystack.

"I wore both of them to school today, just because I have two," she said. "I wore one on each hand and told all my friends and teachers about it."

Contact Sharon Kennedy Wynne at swynne@tampabay.com. Follow @SharonKWn.