On This Day in 1960

There were many 'important' days the year I was a Junior in high school. One of them was January 13, 1960 - a Wednesday. "Went down to the auditorium at 11:30 to vote on the class ring style."
A representative from Josten's was there with a display of ring styles that were available. Jostens was a Minneapolis company and pretty much the 'only game in town' for class rings - at least in the Midwest at that time. I didn't record in my diary how many choices we had nor how many votes we had to take to agree on the design. I only noted: "Stayed after school to practice my speech. Went down (town) to Reeve's (Jewelry Store) afterwards to order my class ring. I'm getting gold (plain).

This illustrates the style our rings were and I remember really wanting to get a ring with the mother-of-pearl under the "C" for Corning. But the plain gold was only $25.00. The rings with "stones" cost  a lot more! Probably only $5.00 or $10.00 more, but in 1960, five or ten dollars was tank of gas or a week's worth of groceries.

Even though my parents paid for my ring and would have gotten me the more expensive one (they did two year's later when my sister got her's with her birthstone), I was very cost-conscious and responsible. 

Our class rings came in on April 28, a Thursday. Dad was in town so he picked up mine and brought it home to me. Just a few days before, on Sunday, my boyfriend had asked me to go steady and gave me his class ring to wear. Suddenly I had two class rings! I only wore my class ring five days before giving it to my boyfriend to wear, which I remember upsetting my folks some, but hey, that's why you wanted a class ring - to exchange with some boy so the world knew you were going steady.

Even though I didn't wear my class ring much after getting married, I still hated that it was stolen in the mid-70's. Every once in a while I check the lost/found class ring sites - Jostens maintains one of those - hoping my ring will show up some day. But I imagine it was pawned shortly after it was stolen and then melted down for the gold.

Hubby dearest still has his class ring ('63), maybe if I hinted enough he would ask me to go steady and I could wear it. Or I can just keep checking the lost and found class rings sites and hoping.