What’s old is new again at El Capitan High in Merced

The new and old El Capitan High School campuses are set to come together Thursday for a ceremony featuring a time capsule and the historical cornerstone in front of the school.

Alumni from the original El Capitan campus, which opened in 1959, will join with the city’s new high school of the same name to bury a time capsule at 11:15 a.m. Thursday at the 100 Farmland Ave. campus. The roughly 45-minute ceremony is planned in front of the school’s main office, near the cornerstone.

Officials broke ground on the old campus – which is now Merced High – on Sept. 18, 1958. A cornerstone was placed on Sept. 3, 1959; El Capitan High opened a week later. The cornerstone now rests at the new campus.

Alumni president Mike Bik said parents, students, staff and administrators are welcome to the event meant to bridge the two campuses. He said it’s a day of celebration, when alumni will gather with the students on the new campus, which opened in 2013.

“There’s not many alumni that get to see their cornerstone set for a second time,” he said. “It took us 50 years to get our school back.”

The $85 million north Merced campus, El Capitan, is a nod to the historical name of the school established in 1959 on West Olive Avenue. The school name was changed at the end of the 1962-63 school year.

A time capsule placed in a wall at the old campus in 1959 was opened in 2012. It turns out the capsule wasn’t sealed properly, so many of the items were rusted or otherwise deteriorated.

Anthony Johnson, the new campus’s principal, said the current student body and alumni decided they wanted to give the time capsule another try. This time, he assured, it is airtight.

“Not too many times can you start a new school with an alumni,” he said. “They bring all this rich culture and tradition, and I think it’s definitely rubbed off on our kids.”

The capsule is filled with several items, including newspaper clippings, a Google Chromebook (which every student on campus has) and a yearbook from the old campus’s first year and one from the new campus’s first year, among other keepsakes. Also, the principal and an alumni member each wrote a letter for the capsule.

Johnson said he thinks the ceremony will be packed with emotion and glee. “(It’ll be) a short and quick ceremony but with a lot of meaning,” he said.

The old campus’s first graduating class in 1961 had 160 students. The last El Capitan graduating class, before the name change, was the Class of 1962 with 193 graduates.

The new campus will have its first senior class in the fall.

This story was originally published April 28, 2015 at 4:22 PM with the headline "What’s old is new again at El Capitan High in Merced."