Selma Herndon Elementary opens up 1990 time capsule in Livingston

Selma Herndon Elementary School in Livingston traveled back in time Thursday during the opening of a 25-year-old time capsule.

Alumni and now retired staff rediscovered old treasures and reminisced. Newspapers with headlines of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, yearbooks, VHS tapes, baseball cards and tickets to the school dance were among some of the buried gems.

“Boy, have we come a long way,” said Selma Herndon Principal Stella Montañez as she held up graduation dance tickets from June 6, 1990.

In 1990, the school site was Livingston Intermediate, home of the Trojans. It was in the middle of transitioning into Livingston Middle School, and it would be about another decade before it transformed into the elementary school.

Jesus Aguilar, 39, and a group of old friends from the Class of 1990 shared laughs as they read a collection of journal entries they wrote when they were in the eighth grade.

“It’s exciting to see what we used to think when we were kids,” he said. “I’m reading this essay I wrote about what I would teach my future kids. It’s crazy.”

Gilbert Arellano, 39, shared an old journal entry with Gene McCullough, his former teacher and class adviser who organized the time capsule 25 years ago.

In the entry, Arellano shared his disliking for teachers that gave him detention, among them McCullough. “Mr. Mac,” as his students called him, was well known for playing Johnny Mathis tunes in class and for his whale stamps.

“Mr. Mac would sit me in the front of the classroom and would get mad because I would stink up the class with Corn Nuts,” Arellano said. “Now we can laugh about it.”

The alumni used the time to take photos with their former teachers such as Mr. McCullough and Mrs. Mary Pickford.

Pickford taught history and government, among other things, in her 18 years at Livingston Intermediate. She was also responsible for putting the 1990 yearbook together. The event, she said, brought many fond memories.

“As I sat here, I was thinking: If I had to do it all over again, I would,” she said. “I grew up in Atwater, but in many ways, Livingston feels like home.”

This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Selma Herndon Elementary opens up 1990 time capsule in Livingston."