LOST AND FOUND In 1976, Greg Bollen was a senior at Jacksonville High School and a free safety on the football team.
That year, Bollen and his teammates became state champions after defeating Hot Springs High School in a defensive battle, 3-0.
It was the first state title for the Red Devils, and the team was properly feted. There was a parade, and University of Arkansas Athletic Director Frank Broyles, along with newly hired head Coach Lou Holtz, spoke at the team's banquet, where players were awarded shiny new state championship rings.
"Jacksonville had never even won a conference championship. ... It was kind of a special thing for the whole town," says Bollen, a Jacksonville dentist.
About two years after he got his ring, however, Bollen lost it. For more than four decades, he had no idea where it was.
Turns out, Elsie Pickels of Cabot had it.
Pickels worked at what was then Rebsamen Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville, which was near the office of Greg's father, who also was a dentist. A vacant lot owned by the elder Bollen separated the buildings. Greg suspects that's where he lost his ring as he was mowing the lot or playing softball and where Pickels may have found it.
Pickels passed away in 2018. Her granddaughter, Kelsie Buck, knew about the ring and posted it earlier this month on the Jacksonville News Feed on Facebook to see if she could find its owner.
Response was immediate, she says. Among those who replied was Greg's wife, Lana, who said she thought the ring might be Greg's.
A meeting was set up with Kelsie's grandpa, Gerry Pickels, who reunited Greg with his long-lost ring, which has a red garnet and is inscribed with his initials, GKB.
"I was shocked," Greg says of his reaction. "I gave up years ago of ever seeing it again."
ARKIES IN SHOWBIZ Minari, a film written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, who grew up in Lincoln, will screen today at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
Minari is loosely based on Chung's upbringing and tells the story of a Korean-American family that has left the West Coast for rural Arkansas, where the father, Jacob, is determined to start his own farm. Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) stars as Jacob and, along with Brad Pitt and Joshua Bachove, is an executive producer on the film.
And Deadline reported last week that screenwriter Graham Gordy (Quarry, True Detective) and director Daniel Campbell (Antiquities), both of North Little Rock, are writing a Courteney Cox drama based on the Netflix football series Last Chance U for Spectrum Originals.
Cox, whom you may know from such TV shows as Friends and Cougar Town, is star and executive producer of the series.
email: [email protected]
SundayMonday on 01/26/2020