Former student Ronnie Shearer, who graduated 37 years ago, finally returned his library books that he found while packing for his move back to the metroplex from Phoenix.  Coming into school was different to him since it had been so long since he has stepped foot into the building.

Shearer graduated in 1975, which was the second graduating class of North after it opened in 1971.  Usually a student cannot graduate if they have fees to pay or books out from the library, but Shearer never actually checked out his books since the index card in the cover of the books was still attached to them. And there were no barcode scanners in 1975 to keep a record of who had it. With so many books in his personal library, Shearer never had the time to go through all of the books he had. Then when he packed to move to a different city, because of work, he never looked through them until recently.

“I have a personal library of about 300 books,” Shearer said. “Many of my early volumes have simply been packed away for many years.”

Shearer felt obligated to return the books to the library since they were not rightfully his to begin with. He thought bringing back the books to the high school he graduated from would be the right thing to do, even if he had to pay the $4,850 fee, which would have been the accumulative cost of not returning the library books. Shearer did not have to pay the fine after all and he was also given the option of keeping the books if he would like to, but he refused to as they were school property.

“If I had to pay the fine, then I would expect a plaque or something [as a reward],” Shearer said.