HARRY WILLIS has his class ring back. Now, does anyone know where his yearbook or Lancer jacket are?
Dave Bakke, a columnist with the Springfield Journal-Register, found his ring. Actually someone in Virden found the ring about 15 years ago. It had the name Harry on it and was from the class of 1989 at Belleville East High School.
The ring had been stuck away in a drawer and dug out recently by someone who told Bakke to trace it. He discovered that the ring could possibly be the property of one of a couple of guys from the class of '89 at Belleville East.
So he wrote about it, and it turned out it was the ring of Harry Willis, who now lives in Springfield. Then he got to write about finding the guy, a real bonus for a columnist.
Bakke had talked to some people at Belleville East who had narrowed the choices down to two. After Bakke wrote his first column last week, a friend of Willis told him about it and Willis was able to identify the ring and claim it.
Bakke called me before his first column to give me a heads-up. He said the folks at Belleville East couldn't find Willis or the other guy in the yearbook. I immediately went to the Belleville Public Library, and its '89 Belleville East yearbook had Willis in the senior section. But he didn't seem to be anywhere else in the book.
Bakke said the ring also had a Gemini symbol on it and an engraving of a runner, but that was information he withheld to be able to identify the true owner.
Interestingly enough, the '89 yearbook had a picture of the track team. There were 13 guys in the picture, but only 12 names in the caption. Turns out that was just a coincidence because Willis said while he did participate in track, he wasn't in that picture.
Willis said it must have been while he was visiting his father in Virden that the ring was lost.
"I moved around quite a bit," he said. "I lost a lot of things."
That includes his senior yearbook and his Lancer jacket. Unlike his ring, neither have his name on them.
Finding them probably is a long shot, but so was the ring story. If you have a 1989 Lancers yearbook you don't want or know where his jacket is, give me a call.
Wally Spiers' column runs five days a week. Have a column idea? Call Wally at 239-2506 or 800-642-3878; or e-mail: wspiers@bnd.com
