text: Randy and Rhonda Thill after a ride to Hudson, Wis., on Sept. 6, 2014. (Photo courtesy Rhonda Thill) 
   
   Rhonda Thill holds her husband Randy's wedding ring Thursday at her St. Paul home. She thought the ring was lost after Randy was killed in a motorcycle accident in June. (Pioneer Press: John Autey) 
   
   About a dozen bikers in leather and denim were crawling aroundin the median this weekend on U.S. 61 in St. Paul. 
   
   They were trying to mend a broken heart. 
   
   The broken heart belongs to Rhonda Thill, a St. Paul woman who lost her love, her husband and the father of her three children, in a motorcycle accident three weeks ago. 
   
   She couldn't bear to lose his wedding ring, too. 
   
   But the ring wasn't among the personal effects she got from authorities after Randy Thill's fatal accident. Thill, 47, died about 1 a.m. June 25 after losing control of his Harley-Davidson and hitting the U.S. 61 median about a half-mile south of Warner Road. 
   
   He died at the scene. 
   
   Rhonda Thill knew his gold band must be there. It was a little loose on his finger, but he wore it every day for nearly 19 years. 
   
   Someone would have to go there, to the spot where he died, and find it. 
   
   "I wanted to go, but I can't," she said this week. "I'm not ready to see it yet." 
   
   A friend called the State Patrol for her and explained the situation. A trooper went back to the scene to look for the ring but couldn't find it. 
   
   A few friends made plans to search on the Saturday after the accident, but a thunderstorm kept them away. 
   
   Her father and brother went out with a metal detector, but they came up empty, too. 
   
   Thill was despondent. She turned to a high school friend who knew someone at the towing company that picked up her husband's Harley. They still had the bike, so she asked if he could at least bring her the guardian ride bell from her husband's motorcycle. 
   
   He did, but it wasn't enough. 
   
   "She called me up crying and said 'I really want that ring back. I don't know what it's going to take,' " said Tim Allen, her high school friend. 
   
   Allen, vice president of Los Valientes motorcycle club, wanted to help. Randy Thill, a technician at Medtronic, got his motorcycle a couple of years ago, and the Thills had grown close to Allen and his girlfriend during their rides. 
   
   "I said I'd round up some friends," Allen said. 
   
   Allen called up his friend at Rapid Recovery, the towing company that had Randy Thill's Harley. He asked if he could get the driver who picked up the bike to show them exactly where the accident was and maybe block a lane of traffic with a tow truck while they searched. 
   
   His friend, Jay Stevens, did more than that. He's vice president of another motorcycle club called Sober Soldiers, a group for bikers who don't drink. 
   
   Not only did he arrange for the tow truck and driver, he also brought along most of his motorcycle club to help search. 
   
   "We didn't know if we'd find it," Stevens said. "We just wanted to give her some closure. 
   
   Jay Stevens of the Sober Soldiers motorcycle club holds Randy Thill's wedding ring on his pointer finger after finding it Sunday, July 12, in the Highway 61 median in St. Paul. Tim Allen of Los Valientes motorcycle club, right, organized the search. (Photo courtesy of Emi Yokose) 
   
   Allen, his girlfriend, Emi Yokose, a couple of Los Valientes members and about a dozen Sober Soldiers followed the tow truck to the scene of the crash. 
   
   They started searching a 100-foot stretch of road, some with metal detectors, others on their hands and knees. 
   
   Someone spotted the rubber gloves the paramedics left behind. 
   
   That was where Thill died. 
   
   Stevens focused his search in that spot, in the tall grass of the median just over the cable barrier. 
   
   Allen watched him while he did his own digging nearby. 
   
   "He was persistent, looking where the body was," Allen said. "All of a sudden, he jumped up and said 'I found the ... thing!' " 
   
   Stevens said the ring was pushed into the soil behind a weed. He said he pushed the weed aside and there it was. 
   
   "It looked like a bit of gold in the ground," Stevens said. 
   
   The whole group went back to Rhonda Thill's house on the East Side. 
   
   Allen and his girlfriend walked up to Thill. They handed her a flashlight and a pair of glasses they found in the median. They belonged to her husband, but they weren't what she was looking for. 
   
   "She held her head down," Allen said. "Then I held up my pinky with the ring on it and said, 'And I got this.' 
   
   "We had to hold her up. She was about to fall over." 
   
   Thill said it was amazing that a group of people she mostly didn't know would go to such trouble to help when Allen asked. 
   
   "He just had to make a call," she said. "All those people have such kind hearts. They didn't hesitate." 
   
   Jaime DeLage can be reached at 651-228-5450. Follow him at twitter.com/JaimeDeLage. 
   
   RANDY THILL BENEFIT 
   
   What: Riding with Randy -- Benefit and Poker Run 
   
   When: 11 a.m. Sept. 5 
   
   Where: St. Paul Saloon, 1045 Hudson Road 
   
   Info: Facebook.com (search for Riding with Randy -- Benefit and Poker Run)
target: – When Rhonda Thill got husband Randy's belongings back after he died in a motorcycle crash last month, her heartbreak was compounded when his wedding ring wasn't among them, she tells Kare 11. "It had to be somewhere," she says. "Maybe the force of the impact—it came off or whatever. I didn't want it to be just left out there." A trooper went to the scene to search, but came up empty-handed, the Pioneer Press reports; likewise her dad and brother with a metal detector. Then Rhonda talked to a high school friend, also a biker, and suddenly a dozen bikers were digging in waist-high grass on hands and knees. After about 45 minutes, KARE 11 reports, one man literally struck gold, spotting the ring pushed down in the dirt. The searchers first gave Rhonda Randy's eyeglasses and a flashlight they had found, per the Press. "She held her head down. … Then I held up my pinky with the ring on it and said, 'And I got this,'" her friend tells the paper. "We had to hold her up. She was about to fall over." Rhonda is still amazed that the group, many of them strangers, would go to such lengths—and grateful to have Randy's ring once more. "It ... makes me feel like I've got a piece of us back together again," she tells KARE 11.