A ring and a prayer: William Penn keepsake turns up in a German forest

Jimmy Tomlin, The High Point Enterprise, N.C.
·3 min read

Apr. 22—HIGH POINT — More than a dozen years ago, in a foreign land some 4,400 miles from North Carolina, a man who'd never even heard of High Point dug up a small nugget of High Point history.

Now, he hopes to return his find to its rightful owner.

Bernd Bohne, a 60-year-old man living in the small village of Gonbach in southwest Germany, was snooping around in a forest with his metal detector when he uncovered a 1958 men's class ring from William Penn High School, High Point's all-Black school in the days before integration. According to Bohne, the ring was buried about 2 inches beneath the surface.

At the time, in 2010, Bohne made an effort to reunite the ring with its owner, but digging up the ring's history proved more challenging than digging up the ring itself, and he gave up. He never gave up his dream of finding the ring's owner, though, and now he's trying again.

"There was never any doubt about a return," Bohne, who doesn't speak English, told The High Point Enterprise through an interpreter. "I think anyone would be happy to receive something like this back."

So with the help of a friend and coworker, Erik Wieman — who does speak English — Bohne reached across the miles to The Enterprise for assistance. He hopes to return the ring to its original owner — or at least a family member if the owner is deceased — but if he's unable to do that, he says he'll donate the ring to the High Point Museum.

Fortunately, a few clues could help solve the mystery.

For example, the ring — which features a sparkling blue sapphire, the words "William Penn High School" and a depiction of what appears to be a tiger, the school's mascot — has three letters engraved on the inside of the band, JWL, which presumably are the initials of the ring's original owner.

The 1958 edition of The Penn, the school's yearbook, includes photos of 77 graduating seniors, but only two of them have the initials JWL. They are James Walter Little and John Wesley Little.

Here's another possible clue: Bohne, the metal detectorist who uncovered the ring, says he found it in a forest about 12 miles from Ramstein Air Base, a U.S. Air Force base that began operation in 1953. If the person who owned the ring ring served in the Air Force and was stationed at Ramstein, that could explain how he lost the ring in Germany.

Referring back to the 1958 yearbook, in which graduating seniors listed their career goals, John Wesley Little's stated ambition was to join the Air Force, but it's unknown whether he actually did so.

Meanwhile, James Walter Little's ambition was to join the Army, and there are also several Army installations in that vicinity. Again, though, it's unclear whether he actually enlisted, and if so, whether he was stationed in Germany.

Therein lies the mystery: Did the wayward class ring belong to John Wesley Little or James Walter Little? Or to someone else altogether? Is the ring's owner still living, or are there any living descendants who would cherish the ring?

If not, Bohne plans to donate the ring to the High Point Museum, where staff members said they would be thrilled to add it to the permanent collection.

"We would be very interested in this donation, if no family members can be found and the finder would like it to come here," said Marian Inabinett, the museum's curator of collections. "We do not have one — indeed, we don't have a lot of William Penn High School student materials."

jtomlin@hpenews.com — 336-888-3579