Middle school alumni exhume time capsule nearly 25 years later

Alumni of Tichenor Middle School in the Erlanger/Elsmere Independent School District unearthed a time capsule buried on the grounds of the school at the end of May, just in time for former students’ twentieth high school reunion.

“It was 1999, and we were going into the new millennium, 2000, so everybody was really into talking about what happened over the last 100 years,” said Ashleigh Linnemann.

Linnemann’s family actually donated the sealed container, which has rough dimensions of 12″/15″/18”, in which the items were placed.

Linnemann, other students and their eighth-grade math teacher, Trina Rider, who at the time used the surname Jolly (in fact, the alumni who spoke with LINK nky still referred to her as Mrs. Jolly), got together earlier this summer to dig up the capsule and go through its contents.

“We were really excited when we opened it up,” Rider said.

In addition to being a teacher at the time, Rider was the sponsor for the school’s National Honor Society and the coordinator for the school’s eighth-grade dinner dance. Most of the students involved were also involved with the NHS. The project had its beginnings in the year 2000, although the capsule didn’t actually go into the ground until 2001.

“It made me feel old for one thing,” joked alumna Morgan Ellis Reed, “but it was an awesome experience to be a part of unearthing something that we buried 25 years ago and to reminisce of some of the things, some of the pictures. It was crazy to see what you’re life became.”

Reed’s family donated the stone that marked off the capsule.

“It was just really surreal, because, see, I was their age [the students’ current age] when we buried the time capsule, which was ironic, because I was like, ‘Oh, we need to rebury this and put some more stuff in it for 25 years,'” said Rider. “And they’re like, ‘Oh no, we’ll be in our 60s; we’ll probably be dead by then.’ And I just started laughing, because I’m like, ‘I thought the same thing.'”

Students put various items from the time into the capsule: photos, newspapers, magazines, student write-ups detailing themselves and their goals for the future, other student assignments, a large reference book detailing major historical events of the twentieth century, some VHS tapes, and other documents from the time. Linnemann later quipped that she still needs to find a player for the tapes.

Part of the student write-ups included students’ career goals.

Linnemann’s predication for herself was “not close at all,” she said.

“I wanted to do something in theater because at that point I was really into speech and drama class and things like that,” Linnemann said, “but I became a nurse.”

Ditto for Reed.

“I wanted to be a veterinarian, and I am right now a legal assistant,” Reed said.

Still, “it’s something that was really special,” said Rider, “and I’m very blessed to have been a part of it, and I can’t believe how big it ended up getting from when we first started.”