Narrative submitted by Michelle Ferland Gutridge
I have a truly remarkable story to tell…
Thirty-two years ago I left Kansas to attend Bowling Green State University as a graduate teaching assistant. Nearing graduation and needing money to prepare for a job search, moving, and purchasing a car, I headed into Toledo several mornings a week during my last three semesters to substitute teach. Working around my obligations to the university, I followed my Toledo city map and my handwritten directions taped to the dash of my car and found my way into every Toledo public high school and most every junior high school to teach math or Industrial Arts.
When I moved from BGSU, I left something valuable behind, presumably in Bowling Green. I searched my apartment, car, desk and labs at the University without any success. I couldn’t find it. I was so proud of the accomplishments it represented and hated the thought that I had lost it. I accepted it as a life lesson, and I moved on.
Flash forward thirty-two years to a couple weeks ago…a Fort Hays State University Alumni associate called me and asked if I had ever been in Start High School in Toledo, OH. "Of course!" I answered. Then she shared some amazing news. Years ago, Marilyn Hensley LaSalle, a custodian at Start High School had found it! Not knowing who to return it to, she kept it safe waiting and praying for an opportunity to return it to me.
In 2010, Marilyn and her sister examined it with every intention of finding me. They wrote a note listing all the information they could glean from it. Fort Hays State University. B.S. 86 M.E.F. 14k And yet, they didn’t have the information they needed to locate me. So Marilyn tucked it safely away again to wait until her daughter Patti Hensley Twaddle found it a month ago while sorting through her mother’s personal effects. A brief online search and Patti emailed the Alumni office at FHSU. She asked if they could help locate me.
Patti called me and I cried. She sent me pictures of her mother’s notes and shared that her mother had been a deeply religious, caring individual who lived her life innately choosing to make things ‘right’. And Patti (who I suspect is very much like her mother) sent pictures of my beautiful class ring…I cried. Patti sent my ring in the mail. It fits more snuggly than it did 32 years ago, but it slipped home. Yep, I cried.
The world is full of wonderful people. It’s humbling when they touch your soul.
I thank God for people with good intentions. I also thank God for the people who help see good intentions through.
From the bottom of my heart, Thank You,
Michelle Ferland Gutridge
Megan Purinton and Lisa Lang from the Alumni Association, were crucial to returning the ring back to owner.
