The last time Doug Hubert laid eyes on his bucket, it was 1984 and the school was digging up another time capsule that had been buried May 23, 1976. Glenvar Elementary school unearthed the 1984 time capsule on Thursday morning, May 28, 2009.

“It was wet, too, like this one when we uncovered it,” Hubert said. Only, the older time capsule had very few legible items. “The only thing I can remember [in the 1976 time capsule] was the comic strip from the Roanoke Times,” he said.

This time around, Hubert has two children attending GES, and the results were a little better: a lunch menu of favorite foods, magazine clippings indicating 1984 fashion sense, laminated Roanoke Times and World News articles, news about Michael Jackson, and other soggy, mostly paper, mementos from 25 years ago.

Former principal Fred Dixon and former assistant principal Dot Mundy were on hand to talk with former colleagues like retired second grade teacher Sue Williams and bus driver Charlotte Robinson.

“I don’t remember anything except we put it in plastic,” Mundy said. She worked at Glenvar Elementary for five years and in Roanoke County for a total of 38 years. “Didn’t think I’d be here 25 years later to look at it,” she said.

Rebecca Russell-Robinson and her husband Brian Robinson, 1995 GHS grads, were both in the first grade when the capsule was buried. They don’t remember much about it, but their story together starts at the elementary school when they rode the bus together. Robinson’s mother, Charlotte Robinson, drove the bus that took them to school.

To see the photos above in a more traditional photo gallery, click here.