Missing class ring found years ago reunited with family of former EPCHS student
EVERGREEN PARK, Ill. (CBS) – After 45 years, a missing class ring found 900 miles away at the bottom of a Texas lake has been reunited with the family of the owner.
The ring was returned to Libby Turner, daughter of late owner Debbie Thiessen, at a car dealership in Rockwall, Texas.
A man found the ring in 2000 in Lake Tawakoni, near the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Thiessen's name was inscribed on the inside.
"I remember her telling me about her high school ring, and how she lost it," Turner said. "It makes sense she would lose it in the lake (Lake Tawakoni) because she lived right there."
Turner was contacted by a man following news and social media posts about the missing ring. At first, she thought it was a scam.
"But when I went on his page and saw my mom's ring, I googled it, started reading about it, and started balling," she said.
It wasn't until this summer that the man who found the ring showed it to a co-worker who contacted the school about it.
Evergreen Park Community High School confirmed that Thiessen's graduated in 1977 – but was unable to contact her.
"I'm so grateful," Turner wrote on EPCHS' Facebook page after retrieving the ring. "To have a piece of her back, and grateful for every hand involved in helping return it."
Turner said her mother only attended EPCHS during her high school years but later moved to Texas shortly after graduation.
Thiessen died in 2019.