Fort River Elementary School Time Capsule to Be Unearthed

Source: Jayne Pearl

Alumni, current and former parents and guardians, and current as well as former staff of Fort River Elementary School i, will gather on Sunday June 1 at 2 p.m.  to dig up a time capsule that students buried in 1994 for the school’s then 20th-year celebration. (Rain date is the following Sunday, June 8, same time). 

During this event, members of the Fort River community will unearth the two metal boxes that were buried in front of the school on its 20th birthday celebration in June, 1994. The containers hold items that every class—from kindergarten to sixth grade—contributed, reflecting something about the 1970s (when the school first opened) or looking forward twenty years to imagine what the school, town and students would be like. After opening the time capsules, Jayne Pearl and Jean Horrigan, who co-led a committee that organized the  celebration of  the school’s 20th birthday, will hold up each item, then place each item on one of two long tables for attendees to look at after the conclusion of the program. 

The June 1 program will include opening remarks by former principal Russ Vernon-Jones, as well as a historical perspective about time capsules from Amherst Historical Society’s president Georgia Barnhill. We also plan a singalong that current and past students, their parents and guardians, and attendees will join in, with a few songs from the 1970s and 1990s, including Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle.” 

We will take photos of the contents and the event, and post them on the Facebook group, Fort River Time Capsule Celebration. The Facebook group already includes photos and an article in the Gazette from the 1994 event. Members of the Fort River community, past and present, may join the group and are encouraged to click an Events link, where group members may indicate if they plan to attend. Further program details will be announced on this Facebook page. 

Former students who participated in the 1994 burial of the time capsule urged that it be unearthed when they learned that the old school will be torn down when the new replacement school, currently under construction, is completed. 

The planning committee for this event includes parents of former students (Jayne Pearl, Paul Kaplan and Jeanne Horrigan), teachers (Irene Eigner, Rick Last, Roger Wallace and Peter Lambden), and former principal Russ Vernon-Jones.  

For more information, including how the committee identified the spot where the time capsules were buried, please contact:

Jayne Pearl 413-530-5730 or jayne@kidsandmoney.comPaul Kaplan 413-687-5002‬ or paulkaplanmusic@gmail.com