LIMA — A Wapakoneta High School 1985 class ring was found after 32 years in St. Marys by a metal detector and returned to its owner.
Pam Ayers graduated in 1985 from Wapakoneta High School. She remembers it was during her junior year of high school that Pam had given her ring to a high school boyfriend to wear on a chain. It was while the two were dating that he lost her ring.
Michael Ayers, Pam Ayers’ husband and owner of The Ayers Master Imaging, received a phone call from a close friend, Kris Querry, asking questions about Pam Ayers’s high school career —where she went and if she was in the band. Then Querry asked, “Was her last name Rickert?”
“I was remember telling her ‘Yes!’ and that’s when she told me that they had found Pam’s class ring,” said Michael Ayers. “I thought that was impossible since she had lost it back in 1983.”
Querry’s co-worker at Joint Township District Memorial Hospital, Spike Ackley, had been out searching the ground out by the basketball courts by the St. Marys Pool with his metal detector when it read that there was an object in the ground below.
Ackley then told his story about his finding a ring from 1985 in really good condition and even had a name engraved on the inside to co-workers at work in hopes of returning the ring back to its owner. Querry heard the story and then called Michael to confirm her suspicions. Ackley gave the ring to Querry after putting it in a ring box to help protect the ring from being lost again.
That is when Querry and Michael hatched a plan to surprise Pam with her lost ring of 32 years.
Michael and Pam got married in 1990 and were in the midst of planning their 25th anniversary party.
“I thought that would be a perfect way to surprise her and give the ring back to her,” said Michael.
The party was small and in the Ayers’ backyard with a fire and food for their guests to enjoy. Michael only told Pam that he had a surprise to give her. Pam was standing in the garage surrounded by guests when Querry and Michael gave her the ring box containing the ring.
Pam said she thought it was a different ring, and was shocked to see it was her class ring. Michael was prepared and had a family member prepared with a camera to catch the moment.
Pam was excited to still be able to wear the ring, which she did for the remainder of the night.
“It was like getting engaged again,” said Pam Ayers.
Excited to have her ring back, Pam showed it off for her guests to see the rest of the evening.
Michael recalls Pam telling him just how crazy it is to have her class ring back after thinking she would never see it again.
