Family reunited with lost class ring, touch a truck in Matteson, and more – Chicago Tribune

An Evergreen Park Community High School class ring has been reunited with the family of its owner about 45 years after it was lost.

Libby Turner, daughter of the late Debbie Thiessen Brouckaert, picked up the ring last week from a car dealership in Rockwall, Texas, where a man who found it works 22 years ago.

Thiessen Brouckaert, who graduated from Evergreen Park in 1977, died in 2019. Turner said her mother moved from Evergreen Park to Texas shortly after graduation.

The ring turned up in Lake Tawakoni, just outside the Dallas-Fort Worth area, in 2000 when a drought caused low lake levels. The man who found it, Mark Jones, was looking for arrowheads at the time and has kept many of the items he found during the search.

“I remember her telling me about her high school ring, and how she lost it,” Turner said. “It makes sense she would lose it in the lake because she lived right there.”

Turner said she was contacted by a man named Ben Daniel soon after EPCHS officials shared a message on social media looking to find the owner of the ring. It had already been known that the ring belonged to Thiessen because her name was inscribed on the inside.

Daniel’s hobby is reuniting lost rings with their owners. When Turner first got a message from him, she thought it was a scam.

“But when I went on his page and saw my mom’s ring, I Googled it, started reading about it, and started bawling,” she said.

Earlier this summer, Jones showed the ring to Randy Smith, a co-worker who contacted EPCHS.

“I’m so grateful to have a piece of her back, and grateful for every hand involved in helping return it,” Turner told the school after meeting with Smith and Jones.

Alsip, Hazelgreen and Oak Lawn Elementary School District 126 is participating in a Summer Breakfast & Lunch Program which makes meals available to all community members under age 18. from July 25-29 at Lane School, 4600 W. 123rd Street, Alsip. Breakfast is available from 8:15 am to 8:30 am and lunch is available from 11:40 am to noon.

More information is at 708-389-1900.

A free community Touch-A-Truck event is planned from noon to 3 pm July 30.

The event offers children and their families the opportunity to sit in and explore vehicles from a number of different trades.

There will be a wide variety of vehicles such as a PACE Bus, vehicles from the Cook County Sheriff’s Department, Matteson Public Works, Will County Farm Bureau, Richton Park Fire Department and more.

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The family-friendly event will be at the Matteson Community Center, 20642 Matteson Ave.

Nicor ​​Gas is sponsoring the Taste of Success Job and Resource Fair featuring opportunities in careers in utilities and energy infrastructure, heating and cooling, construction, traffic management, metals recycling and packaging.

The free event is from 9 am to 1 pm Aug. 6 at the Sauk Village Municipal Center, 21801 S. Torrence Ave.

Officials said the event is geared to all job seekers, including those just entering the workforce.

Participating companies looking to hire include Burling Builders, Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County, Inc. (CEDA), KS Energy Services, Nash Brothers Construction Company, NPL Energy and Utility Construction, TMI Traffic Management, and United Scrap Metal Buyers and Recyclers .

The Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County, Inc. will offer information about available community assistance programs and South Suburban College will be recruiting for its construction program where constituents will learn the ins and outs of the construction industry.

Local food vendors will be on site selling meals as well. More information is at https://nicorgas.com/tasteofsuccess.