GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — More than four decades ago, a man lost something that's sentiment lasts a lifetime: his class ring.
Calvin College, now known as Calvin University, graduate Thomas Ralya was reunited with his sparkling blue class ring.
Ralya says it's been about 20 years since he has been on campus. His return Tuesday meant finding something lost, again.
Tom traveled a lot his senior year while playing music for Calvin, so he stayed in many hotels throughout the Midwest.
He figures he forgot the ring in the shower or something. That was back in 1979.
“I thought about it for some weeks, and I thought I don’t even know where to start. I hoped it would show up at some point and it did,” Ralya said.
It was a big bummer for Tom back then because that ring cost about two weeks' worth of pay— roughly $300.
“I remember that color and everything. I remember the day I picked it out,” Ralya said.
Tuesday, the ring made its way back to Tom after making stops in Decatur, Illinois and Colorado first.
An eagle-eyed hotel employee at the Holiday Inn in Decatur found the ring, which ended up going unclaimed in the hotel's lost and found. So, the employee held onto the ring, and she and her family have kept it safe for the last 44 years.
“Barbara kept a few items. This class ring was one of them. She couldn't part to see it go. And Barbara passed away sadly, in 2009. Her daughter Gianna, who then was cleaning up her mother's items, couldn't part with the ring either,” Director of Alumni Engagement Calvin University, Jeff Haverdink, said.
Gianna, Barbra's daughter, brought the ring back to Calvin by way of Colorado. That's when Alumni Engagement Director Jeff Haverdink started to search for who it belonged to. All he had was the initials "TBR," and the class year: 1979. Haverdink started looking through old yearbooks.
“And thankfully, there was only one match. And his name was Thomas B. Ralya," Haverdink said.
Haverdink connected with Tom, and the rest is history.
“So to see Tom come in today in real life, and be able to reconnect him with a part of his past, and kind of walk down that memory lane with him....it's one of the best parts of the job, right? It really is fun to reminisce and have those feelings of that college experience kind of well up again in people's lives," Haverdink said.
Tom says he always had a feeling the ring would show back up, and is grateful to have the memories that come with it back again.
“It’s a homecoming for me. It’s a neat rejoining of something that meant a lot to me. And when I got that ring, it was like ‘yeah. It’s got B.A. on it. And I’m going to do it,'” Ralya said.
Thomas says he picked blue for the color of the ring to match his eyes, and adds that the ring serves as a strong reminder of his Christian faith.
Calvin also sent him home with plenty of university swag to commemorate the occasion.
