High school ring returned 47 years later
Published: January 15, 2006
Forty-seven years after losing his high school ring in Lake Erie, Ron Witkowski got it back.
A scuba diver found the ring last summer and eventually tracked down the Buffalo-area retiree, who slipped on the long-lost ring Friday.
Witkowski lost his 1958 Sloan High School ring in an embarrassing fashion. Celebrating high scores on a pre-college IQ test, Witkowski, then 17, and a buddy were swimming at Sherkston-Elco Beach in Ontario when his friend lost his contact lenses. A week later, the two teens decided to drop Witkowski’s ring in the water in the same spot to track where current might have carried the lenses.
Neither the ring nor the lenses were found.
Then last summer, Tony DiLeo found the ring among the rocks and zebra mussels while scuba diving off Sherkston. He noticed the ring was inscribed with the initials R.A.W. With the help of Buffalo Channel 4’s Call 4 Action’ and a Cheektowaga-Sloan school official, DiLeo learned that the R.A.W. was Ronald A. Witkowski of Sloan.
When Witkowski, a retired General Motors engine plant worker, fielded the phone call about the ring, he thought it was a scam. After getting it back, Witkowski said he couldn’t wait to contact his old swimming buddy. For years, the lost ring had been their little secret.
“Every time we’d see each other, we would toast the ring and the lenses],’ Witkowski said. “We didn’t think anyone else should know about it.”
Witkowski offered DiLeo a finder’s fee. DiLeo wouldn’t take it.
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