His precious ring: Metal detecter hobbyists return class ring

Submitted photos##Metal detecting hobbyist Gregg Spiegelman of Carlton, left, returns a 1981 McMinnville High School ring to Kevin Bales, who lost the ring in the spring of 1982 while working at Linfield College, now university. Spiegelman and a friend, David Nonnemaker, found the ring in late November and Nonnemaker’s wife, Dori, tracked Bales down. The Nonnemakers are pictured below.

In May 1982, Kevin Bales was at work at Linfield University, operating a riding mower. On an uneven piece of ground, the mower bounced. Bales’ 1981 McMinnville High School class ring flew off, loose because he’d lost weight.

Bales loved that ring. He had worked 35 to 40 hours a week at Shakey’s Pizza during his junior year of high school, saving his money to buy it.

The ring was emblazoned with the Mac High Grizzly mascot and a baseball symbol – he’d been on the varsity baseball and basketball teams. On top was a peridot, the greenish birthstone for August.

After losing the ring he searched and searched, returning to several spots where he’d been mowing that day. But the ring was lost.

Bales had saved the paperwork from Josten’s, the high school ring company, thinking he would use it to reorder his ring someday. That didn’t happen, either.

He thought about it frequently, kicking himself for being so careless. “Being a kid, I was not thinking. The ring was loose, but I kept pushing it back on,” he said.

In retrospect, he knows he should have put it in his pocket or left it at home when he went to work.

More than 42 years later, in late November 2024, Gregg Spiegelman of Carlton and David Nonnemaker of McMinnville set out to do some metal detecting, their hobby. Both men are keen to search places where dwellings or other buildings once stood, in hopes of finding remnants of history.

They get permission from property owners first — that’s critically important, they stressed. It is wrong, and illegal, to go metal detecting on private land without prior permission.

After obtaining permission, they research the areas first, then go looking. Many times, Spiegelman said, the property owner will know a building has been on the site, but not know exactly where. They might start in one area, finding nothing, and locate remnants of a household in a completely different part of the land.

It’s fun and interesting, Spiegelman said. But it’s not treasure hunting; they’re more likely to turn up bits and pieces of trash than anything valuable.

This time, though, their metal detectors pinged loudly. They dug down 10 or 12 inches and found a gold, 1981 Mac High class ring.

Inside, it was inscribed “Kevin Bale” – the “s” had worn away.

Nonnemaker’s wife, Dori, is a 1980 Mac High graduate. She recognized the name; she had known both Kevin Bales and his brother, Kirk Bales.

“I knew who the owner of the ring was, but not where he was,” she said.

She contacted her classmates via Facebook, and soon found out that Bales was living in Beaver, near Tillamook. A mutual friend, Cindy Lorenzen, put them in touch.

Bales said he was blown away. “I thought it was gone for good,” he marveled.

The owner of a landscaping company, he comes to McMinnville frequently. He was happy to make a special trip, though, to meet Spiegelman and accept the ring and the crest, which had come unattached but also had been located by the metal detectors.

“I thanked him profusely,” Bales said. “I tried to give him a reward, but he refused.”

Spiegelman said he and Nonnemaker didn’t want money for returning the ring. Their reward was the joy they felt that they had found something of sentimental value and successfully returned it to its owner.

Nonnemaker agreed. “It makes us feel great,” he said.

Maybe not as great as Bales feels.

“They made my Christmas holiday,” the ring’s owner said. “I’ve been in a very good mood ever since.”

He plans to have the ring repaired, with the crest reattached. He may wear it on special occasions, he said; it’s a bit tight these days, since he’s no longer the slim teenager he once was.

One thing’s for sure: “I’m not going to lose it again,” he said.