Sean C. Morgan
No one could find the Twinkie, but everything else that Pleasant Valley kindergarteners, the Class of 2012, packed into a time capsule 12 years ago was found intact Thursday morning when they dug it up.
The seniors located the plaque south of the high school, near the modular buildings, and started digging.
“There’s the VHS now,” cracked Cory Martin as he inserted a shovel to start the search for the capsule.
“I wonder if the Twinkie’s still good,” said Trisha Van Eck, a parent.
Swapping the shovel among them, the seniors couldn’t find the capsule right away.
“I was there when it got buried,” Martin said. “They had a big old backhoe.”
They needed it this time too.
After more minutes of digging, without results, woodshop teacher Dustin Nichol brought a backhoe over and started really digging. The shovel cracked the concrete vault that had been provided by Bruce Workman, owner of Workman & Steckly Funeral Chapel.
Inside was a metal tube, into which students and parents had placed a variety of items, drawings and videos, everything apparently, except the Twinkie.
Among them were drawings depicting what the kindergarteners wanted to be when they grew up. They also recorded the same thing on a videotape.
The only question about that one is whether anyone still remembers what to do with a videotape.
“I remember doing the videotape, the interview,” said senior Jerohn Coleman. “I said I wanted to be an engineer. That’s what my mom told me to be.”
Now, he wants to become a teacher, he said.
The Twinkie?
“I bet it’s still good,” Coleman said.
“It’s actually really exciting,” said senior Bobby Erickson. “I don’t remember if I put anything in that. I remember kindergarten, but that was about it.”
He said he would be surprised if he’s actually on the video.
Hailey Fisher said her goals have changed.
“When I grow up, I wanted to be a princess,” she said, noting that she’s more interested in becoming a graphic designer now.
Seniors couldn’t recall too many specifics from 13 years ago, but they were still excited to open the capsule.
Jamie Swanson said she didn’t remember putting anything in the capsule, but “they’re saying everybody did.”
“I think we put pictures in there,” said Breanna Hall. “I don’t even remember doing a video. I just remember coming here, standing here, watching them dig up the ground.”
Karlie McCubbins found the CD she put into the capsule, “Millennium,” by the Backstreet Boys. It still had the price tag on it: $14.99.
“I will work at McDonald’s,” Emili Riggs predicted in 2000. She and Clint Doles both drew pictures of themselves working there.
Neither of them are working at McDonald’s today, but McCubbins and Martin do.
Camille Young wrote, “I’m going to get up in the morning for big school.”
“I graduate with my friends,” wrote Hanna Currey.
“I’ll be tall,” wrote Taylor Conn. “I’m going to drive a car. I’ll have a lot of money.”
He does drive a car, but he’s only about 6 feet tall right now, he said. “I’m not quite there, but I’m still growing.”
He’s a little short on the money too, he joked. He’s at “about a half million,” so he’s got a little bit more to go.
Coleman’s mother, Lori O’Brien, initiated the effort, she said.
“It is because I wanted to see what they just did – enjoying it and remembering each other.”
She thought it would be especially fun with the students starting school in the year 2000, while the students were still all in one school, before they split up to the different grade schools.
Friends grow up and drift apart, she said, but as the memorabilia started coming out of the capsule, they were looking, laughing and pointing at each other.
“I can’t wait till senior night when they can look at them (the videos),” O’Brien said.
She remembers the high school putting together the capsule. Her oldest son, Ryan Rowe, was a student in auto shop, which Nichol taught at the time, when they gave the capsule its base paint. He helped Al Grove in metal shop when they made the plaque. The art students gave the capsule its colorful decorations.
The Class of 2000 valedictorians gave speeches and helped bury the time capsule.
And the parents put two $500 savings bonds into a safe to help fund the 2012 SAFE graduation party.
It didn’t turn out perfect though, with one item still AWOL as the seniors had headed back to their high school classes.
“I swear we put a Twinkie in there,” O’Brien said.