16 Years Later, Local Mom Gets Class Ring Back
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Have you ever lost something important to you and accepted you'd probably never get it back? That's what one Fort Worth woman did. But, thanks to a Good Samaritan, she was in for a surprise.
Since graduating from high school, 33-year-old Fort Worth native Nichole Dwire has thumbed through her yearbook. "Nichole Frodin was my maiden name," she said turning the pages.
The mother of three took a brief trip down 'memory lane' explaining, "We were the Cougars. I was a twirler, a majorette."
On occasion Nichole would spend time wondering where the time and her class ring went! "I was working at Ridgmar Mall. Went in to wash my hands, I had took my ring off, and lost it," she said.
Thinking about the ring conjured up other memories. "It reminded me of dances and football games and fun and just friends," Nichole said. "[Wondering] how far everybody has come in that time and how many kids everybody has."
While Nichole has kept in touch with classmates, like CBS 11 Meteorologist Jeff Jamison, through the years there was no clue as to what happened to her 1995 class ring.
It's been 16 years since Nichole was a senior at Western Hills High School, but she says a void has been filled since a stranger knocked on her door.
"I actually spoke to her husband first and he was just ecstatic and then when I got the call from her she just wouldn't stop thanking me enough," explained Tarrant County Detention Officer Chris Streib, who found and returned Nichole's ring. "It's just no big deal on my part," he said.
As it turns out Chris Streib lives less than two miles from Nichole. When he found the ring, in 1999, he was working security at the Ridgmar Mall. "We were going through the lost and found looking through a pretty good size box, and at the bottom of that box was a class ring," he recalled.
Chris called Western Hills and did as expansive a search was possible over the Internet in 1999, but he found nothing.
Then just last week Chris, who had held on to the ring, tried to find the owner again. "I took it out and did another search for Western Hills under the initials NDF," he said. "I checked public records found her [Nichole's] husbands name and address."
Now Nichole is happily reunited with her class ring and comforted by knowing that someone else cared.
As a footnote, Nichole has had other issues with jewelry. "I lost my wedding ring too," she said laughing. Now, she's left hoping it doesn't take 16 to find that.
