OHS renovation discovery rings true

Like a modern-day Bilbo Baggins, Northern Ozaukee School District Facilities Director Kent Schiller stumbled upon something completely unexpected when he found a ring while renovating the locker rooms at Ozaukee High School.

It wasn’t a magic ring, however, that he discovered but it was valuable, at least to 1991 OHS grad Shane Bode, who lost his class ring in 1989 when he was a freshman.

“We were in the demo phase of the old mezzanine storage room,” Schiller said. “I was on a ladder, prying some old lumber and I just happened to sight down the wall and there it was sitting on a two-by-six.

“It had a chain for hanging around his neck. It was covered in dust.”

Inside the ring was Bode’s name, who Schiller knows, having attended OHS a few years behind Bode.

Schiller took a photo of the ring and messaged Bode on Facebook.

“He was ecstatic,” Schiller said. “I’m glad I knew him. I’m glad I found it for him.

Schiller said he put the ring on his kitchen table at home and then forgot about it — until Bode messaged him again a few days later, asking Schiller where the ring was.

“I totally forgot about it but made sure to get it in the mail as soon as I got the message,” Schiller said. 

Bode said he was excited when he got Schiller’s message.

“After all these years it was found. That’s kind of cool,” Bode said.

Bode can’t remember exactly how the ring was lost. He thinks he gave it to a girlfriend during his freshman year. She must have lost it, perhaps on purpose when they broke up.

After all, Schiller said, it would have taken some effort to put the ring on the two-by-six.

But in any case, it’s back. Even though it no longer fits, Bode said.

“It’s at home in my wife’s jewelry box,” he said.

His wife Dawn, by the way, was not the girl he gave the ring to in 1989.

“She went to Grafton (High School),” Bode said. “She thought it (the story of it being found) was funny. Especially the part that I gave it to a girl.”

Bode said the ring was “in perfect shape” when he got the ring in the mail from Schiller. But he was surprised by one thing — the ring had a basketball on it, for the sport he participated in at the time.

“I thought it was a football,” he said. “That’s what I remembered being my favorite sport.”

Losing class rings, and finding them, sort of runs in the family, Bode said, saying his brother also lost his ring somewhere near La Crosse.

“Two retired teachers were going around with metal detectors and found it. They sent it back to the high school,” he said.

The locker room renovation was part of the April 2018 referendum building plan but was helped along by a $50,000 contribution from the OHS Booster Club.

“Between finding some savings and getting support from the Booster Club, we were able to do a complete overhaul of that space,” NOSD Supt. Dave Karrels said.

And resurrect some memories in the process.