It's a party that has been five decades in the making. Former students, staff, and other interested community members will unearth a time capsule buried 50 years ago on the property of Mark Twain Elementary.
The public is invited to attend a ceremony on Wednesday, May 20, 2026 at 10am on the playground at 2000 S. Dakota Avenue. The site of the is now home to Susan B. Anthony Elementary, but the pride of Mark Twain still holds a special place in the hearts and minds of those who attended the school.
In 1976, as part of the nation's 200th birthday celebration, students from Mark Twain buried various "treasures" in a donated burial vault near the front of the school. When Mark Twain Elementary was razed to make room for a new school, the vault was relocated to a spot on the east of the building.
A newspaper clipping from 1976 says the time capsule was to be filled by family pictures, drawings of the school, reports and scrapbooks with student projections of what schools would look like in 50 years, a telephone with a "memory mechanism," and other memorabilia.
A committee, led by former teacher Bev Hammrich, who was in her first years of teaching at the time the time capsule was buried, is orchestrating the celebration. Mrs. Hammrich has created a Facebook page and reached out to former students and other faculty to invite them to attend. The page is called "Mark Twain Time Capsule." Students and staff from across the country have responded that they plan to be in attendance to uncover a piece of the past. All are welcome to attend.