Students inside Ty Keel’s classroom at the Cortez Middle School gathered a few special items on Wednesday. Items included: a year book, football cards,a newspaper, ear buds, a smart phone with a cracked screen, a copy of “The Maze Runner,” a seal from the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and letters to the future.
These are just a few of the things that 11th-graders at the Montezuma-Cortez High School and eighth-graders at the Cortez Middle School have gathered to put inside a time capsule that will be buried near the new high school, currently under construction and slated to be finished before the start of the upcoming school year.
Keel, a social studies teacher at Cortez Middle School, said he was watching a news report about a time capsule in Boston when an idea hit him.
“I thought it would be neat for our eighth-graders to put together a time capsule,” Keel said.
This year’s eighth-graders will be the first to attend all four years of their high school career in the new high school. This year’s 11th-graders will include items in the capsule too – they will be the first to graduate from the new school.
Eleventh-grade student representatives gathered Wednesday to talk about some of the items.
“We sent out surveys to the whole junior class,” said Raquel Lucero, 16. “We got some really interesting feedback.”
Lucero said they decided to include the surveys in the time capsule.
The items include fake eyelashes, black leggins, hair gel, CDs, yearbooks and information about the football team making it to the sate playoffs last year.
When and where the capsule will be buried, is still up in the air, Keel said.
The city of Cortez donated centennial coins to go inside the capsule, in addition, students wrote letters to their future selves.
Students are hoping to open the capsule in 50 years, putting most of the students in their mid- to late-60s when the capsule is reopened.
“I’m hoping it will be a flashback to show what things were like,” said Stevee Brenner, 16.
As far as what life will be like in 50 years, the students had a few predictions.
“We will have holographic Facebook,” Lucero said.
“We will all be in floating wheelchairs and fat, like in the movie Wall-E,” Brenner said.
Skye Cole, 17, wasn’t as optimistic.
“There will be no world,” she said. “We are going to destroy it with nuclear war.”
Lucero said she is excited to be among the first to graduate from the $33.7 million high school.
“Hopefully (the new school) will bring more school spirit,” she said.
Cole hoped the new school will keep more students in school and reduce the dropout rate.
“I don’t know if it matters,” Lucero said. “In 50 years, the government will put chips in our heads and control us.”