Missing Class Ring Returned to High School Sweethearts 60 Years Later

A high school class ring apparently stolen during a biology class more than six decades ago has found its way back to its rightful owners.

Dick Diedrich had given his Class of 1949 ring to his girlfriend, Doris, who is now his wife. She took it off to dissect a frog and never saw it again, according to Fox News.

But thanks to a Waukesha man, Diedrich was able to give the ring back to his high school sweetheart. The couple had married about 60 years ago, despite the missing class ring fiasco.

Mike Geiger was spending time near Minocqua over the Fourth of July weekend when he found the class ring. He’s been searching areas near lakes and beaches with a metal detector, finding items that have been lost or forgotten.

Geiger’s been using metal detectors for years, gaining his interest from his employment at Outdoor Outfitters, a metal detector distributor, in Waukesha.

“Occasionally I find something that is more identifiable,” Geiger said. “When that happens, I do some investigation and I try to get it back. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work.”

Geiger found the Class of 1949 ring from J. Sterling Morton High School in Cicero, IL on July 3. It took him about a week to track down the rightful owner. Diedrich’s initials were on the ring, as well as the school name, so Geiger got in touch with the school’s alumni foundation and learned two men with the same initials as the ring had graduated from the high school in 1949.

The first man was about an hour from where the ring was found and Geiger thought he had found the owner and made a phone call.

“He was a real jerk,” Geiger said. “He was rude, he hung up on me, and I was really discouraged.”

But he still called the second possible owner, Diedrich, and learned the story of how the ring went missing during biology class in 1948. The couple believed it had been stolen.

“He gave it back to her,” Geiger said. “He gave it to her a second time.”

Geiger’s received a lot of media attention on Monday over his find, which surprised him. He’s just doing what 95 percent of people using metal detectors would do, he said.

“It is the whole reason why I do it,” Geiger said. “It is to be that catalyst to give something back to somebody that they never expected to see again. It is fun finding stuff, but it is even more fun to be able to return something to somebody.”

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