‘Twos’-day time capsule

Published 1:30 pm Wednesday, February 23, 2022

By Staff Reports

Class president Jaziah Drayton shovels some dirt on his class’ time capsule while his fellow students patiently wait their turns. 

Tuesday’s unique date, 2/22/2022, created the perfect opportunity for one local elementary school class to do an activity with a long-term payoff.

Mandy Hopkins’ Midway Hills Primary first-graders stuffed a time capsule full of letters, pictures, and other mementos and buried it in front of their school Tuesday. There it will remain for more than 11 years, as the young students have vowed to return as high school seniors and unearth it with their teacher on another unique date, 3/3/2033.

“We figured that was pretty significant,” Hopkins said of the numerical dates. “We decided to write letters to ourselves, and we’ll hopefully all get back together in 11 years to see how much we’ve changed and how far we’ve come.” 

Hopkins got the idea from teacher blogs she follows to stay up to date with cool ideas that could work for her classroom.

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“I thought it was too neat not to do,” she said. “You have to take advantage of these fun opportunities.”

Besides the letters, also included in the small plastic box are photos of the students, a mask to remember the COVID pandemic by, Pop It toys, and a price sheet showing today’s costs for gas, movie tickets, a gallon of milk, and other goods. 

Once the time capsule was placed into the hole by classroom president Jaziah Drayton, students took turns refilling the hole just behind the school’s brick sign out front. 

Last spring, Lakeview Primary, which is located right across the street from Midway Hills Primary, had some of its former students back to dig up a similar time capsule they had placed as fifth-graders seven years prior. The search took some time, but a backhoe sent by the school district brought the relic back to light eventually. 

Hopkins’ class capsule did not go all that deep, and — for anyone from that class reading this in the future — it can be found near the midpoint of the sign, about 2 to 3 feet back toward the school building. 

You never know when you might need a little help digging the past back up. 

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