After 25 years, Glen Ellyn school opens time capsule

Carrie Hill couldn't hide her amusement when she returned to Glen Crest Middle School to open a time capsule buried at her alma mater 25 years ago.

Current students were busy sifting through the container's contents when Hill suddenly burst out laughing.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I totally look the same."

Hill recognized herself in a photo sealed in the capsule in January 1992. Here was a long-forgotten image of a redheaded teen selected to play the flute at the groundbreaking ceremony for the school's new science wing.

"That's pretty funny, in fact. That was like the one month I played the flute. It wasn't very long," Hill said. "It was probably like me trying to figure out how to hold it for the picture."

The recent opening of the capsule stirred up more than memories for alumni and teachers who still work at Glen Crest all these years later. Members of the student council who were on hand for the unveiling connected with the past and learned a little about the history and tradition of their school.

Students also read faded messages from now-retired teachers about predictions for the future and hopes for the next generation.

"I have no crystal ball, only the hope that mankind will have continued to work hard to nurture the precious planet on which we live," Susan C. Stewart wrote on June 7, 1991. "And that each of you will remember your years at Glen Crest as precious moments in your youth."

Science teachers and students assembled the mystery items for the capsule, hidden behind a cinder-block wall of their new wing, built in 1991 on part of an athletic field. A plaque marked the spot on the wall and included specific instructions that the capsule was to be opened in January 2017.

As the date approached, modern-day students began asking Principal Kim Price about when they could get a peek inside the capsule. Price then coordinated an informal gathering and assigned the honor of opening the capsule to three alums.

Hill and Steffanie Meeks - who have remained best friends since middle school and would send their own kids to Glen Crest - each took turns unfastening the screws that held the plaque in place. Another classmate, Corrine Crowder, mom of an eighth-grade student, reached inside the space behind the wall and pulled out the cylinder.

Inside, teachers had left an owl pellet, an invitation to conduct an experiment on an unknown substance and an old bell schedule.

"It's nostalgic to see everything," said Laura Guzman, a French and English teacher who's worked at Glen Crest for 28 years. "I can't believe that kind of time has passed by. I really can't. It's crazy."

Students grasped that the hairstyles worn by the Class of 1992 are no longer in style.

"Someone had a mullet!" Jason Lo, 11, remarked at one photo.

Student council members are planning to leave behind their own time capsule at Glen Crest later this spring. It won't be buried in the same spot, and there's been talk of sealing off an entire locker with items that define the pop culture and their chapter at the school.

But students will give the same instructions to open the new capsule 25 years later - in 2042.

"We're going to leave some of the decisions up to the kids," Price said. "We'll see what they come up with and what they feel is important to put in there and what represents them now."