Lost for more than two decades, TDHS class ring returns home after mystery journey from Dallesport to Prineville

How this ring made it from Spearfish Lake in Dallesport to the Prineville Reservoir 10 miles outside of Prineville we may never know. Tim’s just glad to have it back home.

By Tom Peterson

The Dalles, Ore., Aug. 4, 2026 — When Tim Wells slipped his 2004 The Dalles High School class ring off before taking a swim at Spearfish Lake in Dallesport during the summer before his senior year, he figured it would turn up after a little searching.

Instead, it vanished for more than two decades.

On Saturday, Aug. 1, Wells, 40, was reunited with the ring at Cousin's Country Inn in The Dalles, where he met Prineville resident Dylon Ashcroft, whose persistence helped return it. Robin Sallee, a former The Dalles resident and rodeo queen now living in Prineville also played a key role in locating Wells through social media.

Tim Wells, Robin Sallee, Dylon Ashcroft and Maddie Pope spent an afternoon unraveling some of the mystery behind Tim’s long-traveled class ring.

The reunion answered the question of whose ring it was.

But it left the how, dangling.

How did a class ring lost near Spearfish Lake in Dallesport, Washington, end up at Prineville Reservoir nearly 150 miles away?

No one knows.

"I'd love to know," Wells said. "That's the only thing."

Lost before senior year

Wells said he lost the ring during the summer of 2003 while working in the Dallesport area before beginning his senior year at The Dalles High School.

On a hot afternoon, he and fellow workers stopped at Spearfish Lake to cool off. Before jumping into the water, Wells removed the ring and placed it on the center of his truck's steering wheel.

After returning to work, he unknowingly drove away without it.

"It must have fallen out of the truck," Wells said.

He and a close friend spent days retracing their steps around Spearfish Lake and nearby job sites, hoping to spot the ring. For years afterward, whenever he happened to be in the area, he looked again, but it never resurfaced.

A surprising discovery

About four years later, Ashcroft was fishing with two friends at Prineville Reservoir during a period of exceptionally low water.

When the fishing slowed, the trio began walking the exposed shoreline looking for lost fishing lures.

They found sunglasses.

A fishing rod and reel.

Then Ashcroft noticed a shiny black object in the water.

“I thought it was a piece of obsidian,” Dylon said.

Instead, it was Wells' class ring.

Engraved on it were four clues: the name "Tim," "TDHS," the year 2004 and a wrestling emblem with Wells' weight class.

Ashcroft held onto the ring, intending to someday find its owner.

“I kept it… and then life got busy,” he aid.

The ring eventually ended up in his nightstand, where it remained for years.

Four clues lead home

Recently, Ashcroft noticed the ring again and decided it was finally time to solve the mystery.

He contacted someone at a radio station in The Dalles to see if anyone connected with the high school's wrestling program might recognize the clues. Around the same time, he ran into Sallee, who had moved from The Dalles to Prineville and was heavily networekd to many people back home.

Ashcroft asked if she would help.

Sallee agreed and posted a message in the Facebook group "The Dalles Happenings," mentioning the name Tim and the TDHS Class of 2004.

The post sat awaiting approval for weeks, she said.

Then, once it appeared, responses poured in.

"The next morning I had at least 12 messages," Sallee recalled as people throughout The Dalles began trying to identify the mystery wrestler.

Within a day, they had their answer.

It was Tim Wells.

"My phone was blowing up," Wells said.

'That's absolutely nuts'

When Wells learned Ashcroft had carried the ring around for nearly two decades before tracking him down, he was stunned.

"That's absolutely nuts," he said.

The four met Saturday at Cousin's Country Inn, where Ashcroft finally handed the ring back to Wells.

Former wrestling coach Rich Rolen with wife Patty Hudson Rolen, both pretty fierce competitors. ;)

What could have been a brief exchange lasted much longer as the group swapped stories about growing up in The Dalles, wrestling, hunting and life in Central Oregon. By the end of the afternoon, strangers had become friends through a story none of them could have imagined.

Holding the ring again also brought back memories of Wells' wrestling days at The Dalles High School under coaches Rich Rolen, Kevin Kramer, Tim Brown and Eric Van Klay.

The mystery remains

The biggest mystery remains unanswered.

Neither Wells nor Ashcroft has any idea how the ring made its way from Spearfish Lake to Prineville Reservoir.

One theory is that someone found it in Dallesport, took it to Central Oregon and eventually lost it again.

Another is that material excavated near the lake somehow carried it away during construction.

Or perhaps, as the group joked Saturday, a curious bird picked up the shiny ring and dropped it somewhere far from where it disappeared.

Whatever happened, the answer remains somewhere between Dallesport and Prineville.

"I'd love to know," Wells said.