In 1976, AGHS students and staff worked together to create a time capsule. They designed it with the purpose of giving future students a glimpse into their lives, so we could see the change throughout the years. It was unearthed in 2000 in honor of the new millennium.

“The reason they chose 1976 was because that was our nation’s bicentennial. [The] 200 year anniversary,” Mary Garza said. Ms. Garza teaches English 9 & 10 alternatives. Her classroom hosts the time capsule.
Inside the capsule, there were lots of items celebrating the bicentennial, such as special edition newspapers, TV guides, and phone books.

There were also lots of items that they would use in their daily lives like newspapers and magazines, and cassette tapes and players.

Those were things that they always used that we don’t think about now. And we can see how it has changed our lives over the years. Simple things that are so common to us now, such as having phones and doing things online, were not a norm in1976. For example, if you wanted to make a specialty purchase, you would receive a large book in the mail from a store and you would shop with it.

“So of course, no internet or anything. And this was the most popular place to shop ‘online’… you would call an order anything in here like TVs and stuff,” Garza said.

There were no cell phones back then so they had to use another type of phone.
“They didn’t have so much that we all take for granted right now, such as where everybody had home phones, so they had

telephone books, and this is how you found out people’s phone numbers. Or if you wanted to buy a car you would look here. So this is something that we don’t even really use anymore,” Garza said.

After they had accumulated lots of items for the capsule, they sealed it up and buried it.

“It was put in this big, concrete thing, and buried in front of the school. This was before the remodeling that happened,” Garza said.
After they revealed it in 2000, they placed it in a cabinet and filed it all so that it would be organized and so that they could find all the items easily.

They placed photos of the building of the time capsule as well as photos of daily life on the sides of the filing cabinet doors. They also added a letter to the people of the year 2000.

In the year 2000, they created another time capsule that will be unburied in 2025. It has lots of different items than the ones in the 1976 time capsule.
“We put in things like a backpack… examples of student work, school newspapers, a couple of yearbooks…somebody put in an iPod, a vintage student ID card. And we used to have lunch cards. They would punch a hole in it when you got your lunch. We tried to emulate what was done and then bury it,” Garza said.
In 2025, the new time capsule will be opened and we will be able to look into our past and what life was like before, and how things have changed now.