CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A rock fragment scooped from the surface of the moon during NASA's final lunar landing in March 1973 -- and missing since it was presented to the state of West Virginia a few months later -- is believed to have resurfaced in Morgantown.

For years, the rock has been perched on a shelf in the home of retired Morgantown dentist Robert Conner, who only learned Friday that the mineral specimen was being sought.

"I don't really know how long it's been lying around here," said Conner. "It was among items that were unpacked from boxes that had been in storage from my brother's law offices."

Conner's brother, Troy Blaine Conner Jr., a Moundsville native, WVU law school graduate and former attorney for the Atomic Energy Commission, died in 2002.

While the Morgantown man wasn't sure how his brother came to be in possession of the rock, he did say that former Gov. Arch A. Moore Jr. and Troy Conner were law partners for several years in Washington, D.C.

Moore, who was governor when the moon rock was presented to the state, told The Associated Press on Friday that it was his intent for the moon rock fragment to end up in the West Virginia University library, but he might have given it to Troy Conner "to observe."

The tiny mineral specimen was among 110 pounds of lunar rocks gathered in the Taurus-Littrow Valley by Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt during NASA's last manned voyage to the moon.

While most of the rocks were used for scientific research, small fragments of some of them were encased in acrylic shells and mounted with small plaques, and then sent as goodwill gestures to all U.S. states and territories and 135 foreign countries. Accompanying the tiny Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rocks were tiny flags, representing each state and country, which had flown to the moon and back with the astronauts.

In the 37 years since the ceremonial moon rocks were distributed, many of them have turned up missing and some have been stolen. According to a list of known locations of Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rocks maintained by the space hobbyist website collectSpace, the moon rocks are not accounted for in 83 nations and 17 states, including West Virginia.

Earlier this year, Sandra Shelton, a former Kanawha County resident, DuPont High graduate, and WVU student now enrolled in the University of Phoenix's criminal justice program, contacted a number of state agencies in an attempt to locate West Virginia's missing moon rock.

For the past eight years, Shelton's criminal justice instructor, Joseph Gutheinz, has involved his students in an effort to find the missing Apollo 17 rocks as a way to teach investigative skills. A former investigator in NASA's Inspector General's Office, Gutheinz led an undercover sting in 1988 in which NASA agents posed as buyers for the Goodwill Moon Rock that had been presented to Honduras. Gutheinz's team recovered the authentic, misappropriated moon rock, which had been offered to them for $5 million.

While Shelton's attempt to locate the missing West Virginia moon rock produced no immediate results, a story on her quest that appeared in the May 16 Sunday Gazette-Mail did produce a phone call from Betty Conner, Troy Conner's widow, who had read the piece.

"She called me this morning and told me that the rock had been found when they were opening boxes of Troy Conner's belongings, and she said that the person who had the rock now was Dr. Robert Conner in Morgantown," Shelton said on Friday.

"Before today, I never gave it much thought," Conner said of the ceremonial specimen. "It looks like a little cinder embedded in a sphere of plastic. It has a miniature state flag and a little plaque that says it's a gift to the people of the state of West Virginia from NASA.

"It kind of looks a little tacky, but if it really came from the moon, then I'm impressed."

Conner said he hopes the rock will be placed in a museum or other public display site "where people can look at it."

Reach Rick Steelhammer at rsteelham...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5169.