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Stadium Elementary’s search for ’time capsule comes up empty – for now
By Bruce Walton
Boardman
Ginny Yazbek’s fourth-grade class of 2008 returned to Stadium Drive Elementary on Tuesday afternoon hoping to dig up the time capsule the students had buried back then.
They couldn’t find it after a few dozen holes and two hours – but they did recover the memories of a simpler time.
“I’m not disappointed at all,” said Taylor Harden, now a senior at Boardman High School. “This was fun. It was fun looking for it.”
The class, now 18- and 19-year-olds, brought shovels and a few friends and family and dug around the specific area where the capsule should have been, finding nothing. The group was confused about the directions it had recorded at the time.
Yazbek, now 64, retired in 2009. She wrote down directions to find the capsule: “adjacent area to rooms 111 & 112, 3rd tree closest to the woods, 16 paces from the tree toward Market St. (east).”
Yazbek said she had the children in 2008 draw what they’d look like eight years later, write a note to themselves and include a series of newspaper clips about the capsules unearthed before at the school. She stored it all in a small canister wrapped in plastic bags to protect it.
It had been a tradition of teachers for 24 years to bury a time capsule and dig it up eight years later with the students. But in 2008, the usual place a few feet from the building was closed due to construction. That’s why Yazbek said they had to find a new location, and one they weren’t familiar with.
The class came back when contacted by their former teacher about a reunion to open the time capsule – and started digging. Some students were already skeptical of finding the capsule because of the directions.
“In the back of my mind when I got the paper, I said, ‘Yeah, we’re not going to find this thing,’” said Adam Deeley, a Boardman senior.
Some students, such as Kent State University freshman Rayne Blakeman, reflected on what their younger selves would think of them now.
“I think my fourth-grade self would think I look really cool, which is nice because I’m kind of who I want to be at this point,” she said. “But I definitely look nothing like what I thought I was going to look like.”
At the end of the day, most had to leave for their graduation banquet. Yazbek gathered every student’s contact information and said she will plan to try again next week to find the capsule. The class is hopeful about its next excavation and might bring a metal detector.
Whatever happens, Yazbek said she’s proud to look back at her class.
“I think they’ll do good – they were good kids,” she said. “They seem to have good plans going forward.”