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Photo illustration by Allie Deutsch

Through yearbook and internet research, Principal Ellen Reilly and McLean alum Rusty Payne returned a mailed McLean Class of 1976 ring to the family of its old owner. Charles Bick, who dropped the ring in a park decades ago, died in a plane accident in 1984. (Photo courtesy of the McLean Yearbook)

Principal Ellen Reilly’s mail contained something curious: a small jewelry box holding a ring, a thick band of gold with a scarlet center stone. Perplexed, she unfolded a scrawled note left unsigned by its author.

Enclosed is a HS class ring from many years ago. I hope you can find the owner. My husband found it many years ago in a park. (I think in Herndon, but not sure.) I just know it should go back to the owner. Good luck!

Reilly was doubtful. Of all of the thousands of students who attended McLean through the years, how would she ever find who the ring belonged to, much less be able to return it? However, her initial skepticism shifted when she saw the letters “CLB” and the year 1976 engraved on the ring.

“At first I was kind of like, ‘oh my gosh, I can never do this,’ but then it became kind of a challenge,” Reilly said.

Embracing the odd tasks that come with her role as principal, Reilly decided to do some sleuthing using the library’s extensive yearbook collection. Reilly reflected on the differences between then and now while paging through the 1976 yearbook, full of shaggy hairdos and handlebar mustaches.

“You’re going through the same experiences. You’re trying to figure out who you are, where you’re going, and they were going through that exact same thing,” Reilly said. I think values may have changed, or beliefs and stuff have changed, but not much else…the teachers, the classes they’re taking, the clubs, the sports…it’s just like now.”

Scanning the senior class for the initials “CLB,” Reilly discovered just two possibilities for the ring’s owner: 1976 graduates Christopher Baumgardner and Charles Bick. At this point, she connected with her friend, well-connected McLean alum Rusty Payne, for assistance.

When Payne researched Charles Bick, who had a middle initial of “L,” he found an obituary.

Charles Bick died just eight years after purchasing the class ring. After graduating from Duke University and joining the Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, he became an instructor pilot in Columbus, Mississippi. In an accident that took his life and the lives of two other pilots, his jet trainer crashed into another jet trainer.

With new knowledge of Charles’ death, the ring took on a new meaning; it was a relic by which Charles’ family could remember him.

“[I was] just trying to serve others, trying to do a little bit of good in the community and help somebody out,” Payne said. “I knew before I even talked to the family that they would be very appreciative that they could have something of their late family member returned to them.”

Once Payne discovered the contact information of Charles’ brother Jim, Reilly set out to return the ring to its rightful family.

Jim suspects that his brother dropped the ring in the park at some point before his death in 1984, never telling his brother or parents. In an interview with The Highlander on Memorial Day weekend, Jim provides some insight.

“I assume [Charles Bick] was out with friends playing and/or drinking beer and lost it. More interesting is who found it,” Jim said. “My guess is that someone found it a long time ago and for whatever reason didn’t return it. Maybe they wore it. Then either they forgot about it for many years or when they, or surviving spouse or heir, rediscovered it, wanted to do the right thing at last but only anonymously.”

The ring will be returned to Charles’ mother Katherine, who will pass it along to Jim’s son Evan.

“You never get over the loss of a child, especially violently like that. She [heard] a midnight knock on the door from uniformed people telling her that he had died,” Jim said. “She thinks about it probably daily and certainly thinks about it, you know, today being Memorial Day…The ring itself is just an interesting little sideline.”

Charles’ legacy lives on in Evan, whose middle name is “Charles” in memory of his uncle. The Bick family continues to remember him fondly.

“He loved to fly, was well liked. He was loyal. He actually, apparently, volunteered for extra hours, which was, he took somebody’s flight on the one that he was killed on,” Jim said. “He found what he really wanted to do in the Air Force, which was flying.”

Almost fifty years after his graduation, Charles’ memory returned to McLean in an unexpected way. High school may be fleeting, but our stories from these four years will endure.

“Look at the significance of this time period for you: right now, graduating,” Reilly said. “It’s a memory that families are going to cherish forever. And so I hope that that ring brought them those memories of when he graduated.”