She lost her Fremd class ring 45 years ago. A Facebook group helped her get it back.

As a junior at Fremd High School in Palatine in 1974, Ruth Ford longed for one of those $150 class rings to announce her upcoming graduation as a member of the Class of 1975.

"That was a lot of money," remembers Ruth, who now uses the last name Drake. "I begged my dad and my stepmom to get my class ring. I carried on, you know, like kids do."

Her stepmom caved. Ruth bought the ring and immediately gave it to her boyfriend, Doug, who was 18 and had graduated from a neighboring high school. Giving your ring to a boyfriend or girlfriend was a big deal.

"The boys would wear it on a leather shoelace around their neck, and the girls wrapped theirs with mohair yarn to make it fit," says Ruth, who was the eldest of eight kids in her family.

Two days later, the ring vanished.

"I was so mad. You don't even know how mad I was," says Ruth, who figured Doug lost it in his house. "We searched his house. We tore up everything and moved the furniture."

The ring was gone and the relationship was over. "That was the last of Doug," Ruth says. "And I never told my stepmom I lost it."

Ruth spent her senior year living with her mom in Northbrook and started school at Glenbrook North High School. "I quit school and went back to get my G.E.D. years later," she says.

Meanwhile, a few years after her ring disappeared, workers found it while refinishing a floor at Fremd. It got stuck in a drawer and apparently stayed under cover for the next four decades.

"I was given the class ring at the end of last year," says Tara M. Pegarsch, a speech language pathologist at Fremd who also serves as alumni sponsor. She started a Facebook page for Fremd alums. "It's great. We have 3,000 alumni now," Pegarsch says. She thought maybe the alums could help her return the ring to its rightful owner.

"I pull the ring out of my desk and notice there was a name engraved on the ring. The engraving is so small," Pegarsch says. She posted a photo of the ring on the Facebook alumni page on Aug. 27.

"Class of 1975 class ring found at FHS. The engraving says Ruth Ford. Is she part of this group? Does anyone have a way to contact her?" Pegarsch wrote.

Alums quickly responded. Ruth had three younger sisters and two brothers who went to Fremd. One of them saw the post and connected Pegarsch with a skeptical Ruth, who figured it was one of those Facebook scams trying to get her personal information.

"It wasn't until I saw the picture of the ring and blew it up so I could see my name," Ruth says. "I can't tell you how excited I was to get this ring back."

She tried it on. "It only goes halfway down my ring finger. I must have been pretty skinny then," says Ruth, 61, who currently wears the ring on a chain around her neck. "I'm going to see if I can get it resized. I'd like to wear it again."

Pegarsch is happy, too.

"That's the magic of a strong alumni group," Pegarsch says. "Forty-four years after they graduated and they're still looking out for each other."

Ruth, who drives a semitrailer truck for a cross-country transport company, says she even called her stepmom to say Fremd found the ring that her stepmom never knew was missing.

"She said, 'Oh, nice for you,'" Ruth says with a touch of sarcasm. "I think she was a little mad at me."

Ruth says Facebook also helped connect her to a childhood friend, who joined her on a two-week road trip in her truck.

"I've been in every state except Alaska and Hawaii, and next year I'm going to Alaska because my son, a sergeant in the Army, is stationed in Fairbanks," says Ruth, who also has daughters in Arizona and Nevada, another son in Missouri, and nine grandchildren.

Returning a ring that was lost for 45 years was remarkably easy. "I never in a million years expected them to do it that quickly," Pegarsch says of her alumni group.

The tale does have Ruth rethinking her castigation of Doug. "It must have been my fault because the ring was found at the school," she says.

If only there was a way to let Doug know he is off the hook.