By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
A computer disk, newspaper articles, a green M&M character and a tiny handmade paper box containing a rosary were among the items unearthed Friday morning from a 20-year-old Holy Family Elementary School time capsule.
The enclosed PVC tube was buried in 1998 when the Catholic Diocese opened Holy Family in the former Jefferson Elementary School building at 1800 Milner.
Shirley Dinkel, a longtime teacher at Holy Family, was at the unearthing of the time capsule. She retired in May after 39 years as a teacher. Dinkel, now 69, was pictured in a newspaper article that was found in the time capsule about the opening of the new school.
“The community was so happy for us,” Dinkel said of the new school, “that we were getting a bigger location and we were actually going to be contained in one building. Before that, we were always moving over to Kennedy or another building — the CIC we called them in those days. We had a gym and our own cafeteria and Mass right there in our own building. It was almost like utopia to us and air conditioning and no stairs hardly.
“Honestly, I dreadfully missed St. Joe even with all of those accommodations that made it so better for the kids.”
Dinkel waved a tiny flag from the Dominique Savio Club that she found in the time capsule. The club helped raise money for the poor — about $2,000 per year. Dinkel bought used toys at garage sales or people donated items. They also sold candy and pop. The children earned certificates for the club through donations and their reading program. Several of those 20-year-old certificates were also in the time capsule.
For Christmas gifts for the children’s parents, the students in their math class folded wallpaper samples into tiny gift boxes. One of these handmade boxes along with a rosary tucked inside was placed in the time capsule.
All of the teachers and the students at the time wrote notes to their future selves, and former teacher and students both were delighted Friday to read these yellow postcards, some of which had the students’ school pictures attached.
“I love my class and my new school,” Dinkel wrote on her card.
She talked about her one grandchild. Now she has 10. She wrote about missing her mother after her recent death and spending time with her father.
“I love teaching. I love my family and home, and I love God,” she wrote on the card.
Dinkel said that card was very special to her and she intended to keep it.
“It almost brings me to tears that I got to be part of a legacy like this,” she said.
Madison Quimby, 28, of Hays was a third-grade student when the time capsule was buried.
“It’s exciting,” she said. “It is a little overwhelming to see everything. It is really fun to think back and reminisce.”
Quimby wrote on her card that she missed her old school, but she was excited to be at a new school, she made a new friend and she liked her teacher.
Quimby is back at Holy Family in her first year teaching sixth grade.
“I think that it is still the same family that it always has been,” she said of Holy Family. “It still has the deep roots. I think it has grown because what I see is that it is expanding and there are more students and there is more staff, but there is still that tight-knit family I remember as a student.”
Kelsey Stupka, 31, of Hays, who was a sixth-grade student when the time capsule was buried, said opening the capsule was a blast from the past.
“It is a rush of memories to see all of these things and go through them” she said.
The children from Holy family also made some predictions about 2018, which were read to the current Holy Family students. See some of those are below.
• A man or woman will walk on the planet Mars.
• Automobiles will no longer be fueled by gasoline.
• Digital TV will make action appear as if it is taking place in our living rooms.
• More than half of us will work from our homes, communicating via computers.
• Most homes will be equipped with video phones.
• Most annual publications will be replaced by CD-Rom disks.
• Pocket-size cellular phones will become a staple for all youth and adults.
• More than 75 percent of homes will own personal computers.
• Cars will be equipped with sensors to guide them to their destinations and avoid hazards.