Rocky Mount students find time capsule 33 years later

Roostercogburn · Rocky Mount students find time capsule 33 years later

Posted: Today at 12:04 a.m.
Updated: 33 minutes ago

ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. The timing could not have been more perfect.

A day before the Rocky Mount Senior High School class of 1979 gathered to celebrate its 30th reunion, a time capsule the former classmates had buried as ninth-graders finally was unearthed. The moment was nine years late, but no less thrilling, said Chuck Thorne, who found the capsule that was buried March 31, 1976, by students at the former R.M. Wilson Junior High.

"We were supposed to have dug it up in 2000. That was the big thing then. ... Back then, 2000 sounded like something out of 'Star Trek,'" said Thorne of Rocky Mount.

But the Rocky Mount Telegram reported that in 1999, a week before the class' 20th reunion, Hurricane Floyd hit. The reunion was canceled. A year later, the capsule's disinterment took a backseat to recovery efforts. It didn't help that what was believed to be the only map showing the location of the capsule was lost in the flood, nor that much of the land it might be buried under since had been paved over.

As Thorne revealed the capsule at a reunion luncheon Oct. 17 at the Rocky Mount Arts Center, surprise and excitement registered on the faces of many of the former classmates. Some had forgotten it or thought it lost. Others had heard the news at a reunion party the night before and knew it had been found.

No one was prepared for what was inside. Though the rest of the wooden box was intact, the roof had caved in at some point. Thorne thinks it might have happened when the land it sat under was turned into a parking lot.

Underneath a cream blanket and wrapped inside a plastic green tarp, decay had ruined most of the items. Despite their damaged condition, Thorne removed each item with care and held it aloft for the crowd around him to see. He was able to identify U.S. and N.C. flags. Faded pictures in a photo album showed the students and teachers at the school. A 1976 quarter bore only a little tarnish. A phone book was badly damaged but still recognizable.

The moment was bittersweet for Janet Chadwick, one of the former classmates. Though she was a member of the capsule planning committee 33 years ago, she couldn't remember what went inside. She was thrilled when she heard about the capsule the night before the luncheon, which made finding so many of the items damaged beyond recognition hard to see.

"Back then, I guess we didn't realize that just putting it in a plastic bag wasn't going to be enough. We thought that was going to be enough to keep the water out, and it didn't," said Chadwick of Durham.

Perhaps because of the condition of most of the items, everyone seemed especially thrilled when Thorne unfurled the bright blue flag bearing the name and insignia of the junior high. Time obviously had left its mark on the flag, but it still was intact.

"When they brought out the flag, it just came right back to you. It was just really exciting and emotional," said Lavera Bradley, another classmate.

Seeing the school flag made all the work worth it for Phyllis Jacobs, a social studies teacher who came up with the idea for the time capsule. She remembered that Principal Jimmie Armstrong allowed the flag to be taken from the front of the school and put into the capsule to commemorate the closing of R.M. Wilson at the end of the semester and the country's bicentennial anniversary.

"At that time, people all over were trying to do something that they could remember for the bicentennial. I thought these kids, who were ninth-graders and 14 years old, might need something to appreciate it when they were older. So that is what we chose to do," Jacobs said.

The whole school became involved, Jacobs said. A committee was chosen to decide what items would go into the capsule. The shop class built the box. The drafting class drew the map of its location. The chorus sang, and several students gave speeches at a ceremony held before the capsule was buried.

There it sat for 33 years, long after it was supposed to have been dug up. Thorne thought about the capsule off and on through the years. As the chairman of the capsule committee in 1976, he was charged with making sure it was dug up.

It wasn't until he received an invitation in the spring to the reunion that he began looking for the capsule in earnest. He looked for old photographs and newspapers that might give a hint to its location. He contacted everyone he thought might have a clue. He had metal detectors brought out to the location where he thought it might be. He hit a dead end at every turn.

His big break didn't come until recently. On Oct. 11, Thorne took Jacobs to the former school to point out where she thought the capsule was buried. The journey jogged her memory, and she decided when she arrived home to search a dresser that wasn't damaged in the flood for old newspapers or an event program. She found the original map, drawn in pencil.

Thorne picked up the map that night and had the location marked off by the next day, and Weaver's Asphalt & Maintenance Co. dug it up Oct. 15, two days before the luncheon.

The future of the items in the capsule has not been decided, Thorne said. He and many former classmates would like to see them on exhibit.

The important thing for now, though, is that they have been found, Jacobs said.

"It is like the school living on. It is living in the hearts of all these folks that are here right now," Jacobs said as she looked at all her former students at the luncheon.