Elementary school makes time stand still

Principal Daphne Jah, Jeff Faust, and students James Slaughter and Bailey Tatum pose with the time capsule in West Madison Elementary's courtyard.

West Madison Elementary is literally saving time in a bottle. Having recently excavated a time capsule buried at the school in 1991, the school will have another one planted Tuesday, May 31.

“We were going to actually bury it this week,” explained Principal Daphne Jah, “but we had several people who still wanted to add some things to it.”

Jah said they will put a list of current students in the capsule along with class books.

“We have a newspaper of the tornado and the power outage,” Jah said. “Some of the teachers had a Wimpy Kid book, which was one of the favorite books of second grade, and they had written a message on the inside.”

Teachers, students and PTA members contributed items to put into the capsule.

Jah said the items found in the ’91 capsule were interesting. They had items such as newspaper articles—similar items to what will be put into the new one.

She said the lesson she hopes students get out of this project is that history is important.

“History is who we are, basically, because we’re made up of all of our past,” Jah said. “We’re kind of preserving it by putting it in the time capsule.”