WYOMING, Mich. — As soon as Jan Malek walked into Marge's Donut Den, she asked aloud “Who’s Bruce?”
She then opened up a plastic sandwich bag and pulled out a gold ring.
Bruce Hoch smiled, stood up, and walked toward her.
“I feel like it has to be kind of like we’re getting married kind of,” Jan said. “Does it look like it?”
Hoch held out his hand as Jan put the ring on his finger. He looked at his 1968 South High School class ring and said it was “perfect.”
“Thank you,” Bruce said as they hugged. “Thank you so much for going through all the trouble of finding it.”
“Put a ring on it. That looks like it.”
— Lauren Edwards (@LaurenEdwardsTV) November 29, 2022
A sweet reunion 54 years in the making!
Back in 1968 Bruce Hoch lost his South HS class ring during a beach trip on Senior Skip day. Then, recently, Jan Malek found it. Today, she met Bruce at Marges 🍩 Den to give it to him. // @FOX17 pic.twitter.com/TtljpLpghx
The South High School Spirit Network, which Bruce is a part of, clapped as they embraced.
Bruce said he received his class ring in the fall of 1967. However, he only had it for six months. He and friends went to Tunnel Beach in Grandville on Senior Ditch Day, and before he went for a swim, he gave it to one of his friends to hold onto.
“Well, she must’ve slipped it in her pocket because after we got done swimming and what we were doing for the day, everybody split and went their own way,” recalled Bruce, who later went on to study at Western Michigan University. “Everybody forgot about the ring. I forgot about it. She must’ve forgot about it. And, it was gone.”
That was until Jan came across the ring while recently cleaning out her mom’s basement. Actually, she and her sister stumbled upon two South High School class rings.
“We found this big wooden box and she found various things in there and in this box were two South High School class rings,” Jan said. “So, through that process I’m like we have to find the owners of these. I vaguely remember seeing the ring years ago as a kid, but that was pre-technology.”
So, Jan googled the school’s name and read a Grand Rapids Press article about South High School’s 50th class reunion. She reached out to the group’s Facebook page — the South High School Spirit Network — and got in contact with chairman Frank Russo.
“On our Facebook page we have over 1,500 members. So, when you can’t find people, you can go on that web page and find all the information that they need to get,” Frank said while sitting next to Bruce. “That’s how that Jan got a hold of me and I got a hold of Bruce. It’s kind of like a little detective work.”
Frank said as soon as Jan reached out to him, he grabbed the yearbook, found Bruce’s photo and year, and then texted him a picture of the ring asking if it was his. Sure enough, it was.
“This is amazing. This is really crazy,” Bruce said with a smile. “It’s really hard to describe actually. I thank Frank so much for doing everything that he does for the group.”
Bruce was also grateful for Jan’s help. The school closed the year Bruce graduated. However, the ring brought back sweet memories.
“It was really cool,” Jan said. “I know if I lost my high school or college ring, it means a lot. And, I think it means a lot more because the school closed. I just really wanted him to have that ring back.”
