A picture of Donald Koepfer and his U of T classmates.
By Rob Alway. Editor-in-Chief.
SCOTTVILLE — An act of a good Samaritan and some detective work from some city employees have resulted in a class ring being reunited with its owner.
Recently, Jacob Larson, 16, a student at Mason County Central High School brought in the ring that he had found on his walk to school near the intersection of State Street and Reinberg Ave.
“I was very impressed that he did the right thing by turning it in,” said Main Street Director Heather DeVries. “He had done some initial research on it but couldn’t find anything on the owner. Looking at the ring you can tell that it was well worn and with my background in research, curiosity really got the best of me. I asked Scottville Police Sgt. Jason Williams if it was OK if I could look into it.”
DeVries said there was quite a bit of identifying material contained on the ring such as the university name, date, initials and fraternity emblem. “I didn’t think it would be too difficult to find the owner or at least a lost and found ad on it,” she said.
The ring came from the University of Toledo and the fraternity was Theta Chi.
“I started by looking at lost and found ads as well as Craigslist ads,” she said. “I was a little discouraged to not find anything posted but like with any problem in research there is always a way around it. I looked up the fraternity logo, but found little contact information for them other than on Facebook pages. I was tempted to contact the National Chapter of Theta Chi but thought calling the University itself may be more of a direct route.”
DeVries then called the University of Toledo Alumni Relations where she spoke with Sally Berglund. By the end of the week Berglund had gone through yearbooks and identified a few potential candidates but she wanted to make sure the records were correct.
“Sally and I kept in contact through email over the university’s winter break and she sent along the owner’s information. He was the only student graduating in 1959 with the initials on the ring and a member of the fraternity.”
Donald Koepfer lives in Georgia and has never been to Scottville. DeVries said it’s a mystery to him how the ring came to Michigan. The last he had seen it was right before he went into the military after college.
Scottville Police Department also helped make contact with Koepfer and confirmed that it was his ring.
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