Bill Arp Elementary's fifth-grade class of 1999-2000 gathered in the school's media center
earlier this month to open a time capsule they sealed 26 years ago.
The Feb. 9 reunion was the brainchild of Amber Sauls Cardell, who said she thought about the time capsule several times over the years, believing it had been buried at the old Bill Arp Elementary that is now home to the Murray Educational Center.
Bill Arp gifted teacher Amy Dobbs tracked the time capsule down — it had actually been in the school’s vault — and arranged the unveiling ceremony.
Cardell, her father Allen, former classmates and teachers — including Suse McKeeman, Robert Blevins, Tammy Womack and Susan Dodson — opened the time capsule, discovering Pokemon cards; magazine clippings featuring Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys; state quarters from 1999; class photos; and letters each student wrote to their future selves.
Blevins, who was a fifth-grade teacher at Bill Arp that year, and a former student, Haley Hendrix, remembered a chain email class project when the “internet was brand new” that led to students receiving postcards and packages from all over the world.
Cardell and her father were excited to read the letter that she wrote to her future self as an 11-year-old in May 2000.
Cardell wrote that she would have two kids and a hectic life, “and all that became true,” she said.
She thought she would become a firefighter or maybe a lawyer. She now works as an investigator for the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office.
“I felt like I was pretty realistic, and it was kind of spot on,” she said.