Students get blast from the past
BY BETTY ARCHER ALLEN Gulf Breeze News betty@gulfbreezenews.com

BettyArcher Allen/Gulf Breeze News Adam Jaffe examines the items that he had buried in a time capsule in 1999 when he was in fifth grade. Jaffe recently graduated from GUlf Breeze High School.

On Tuesday May 15 at 2:30 pm a group of graduating seniors met their fifth grade teacher Mark Sebastian at Gulf Breeze Elementary School to dig up a time capsule. They had buried the capsule when they were Sebastian's "millennium class" of 1999-2000. There were 28 students in the class and several of the original students, friends as well as some parents attended the long awaited event. Sebastian started digging with assistance from some of the attendees and soon the capsule was unearthed and opened. Students began to retrieve plastic bags with their names written on them. The items that they had placed in the capsule were things that were very interesting to them in 1999.

The idea for the time capsule was Sebastian's but Adam Jaffe was the contact person who was given the task to remember the site and the date May 15, 2007 that the capsule was to retrieved. As a fifth grader, Adam accepted the responsibility of remembering the burial site and contacting the other students in the class when they became seniors. He contacted Gulf Breeze News as well.

Betty Archer Allen/Gulf Breeze News Mark Sebastian wanted his former fifth grade class to remember things that interested them in 1999. The time capsule was opened as his former students graduated high school earlier this year.

Adam is the son of Susan and Marc Jaffe and has a brother Scott. The family has lived in Gulf Breeze for 11 years. Adam has been accepted to the University of Florida and plans to major in biology and pre-medicine.

When asked why he showed such responsibility at this young age, he responded, "I thought it was really a cool experience for every one to meet after so many years. Besides it was easy to remember the day because it's near my brother's birthday."

The items that Adam placed in the capsule consisted of a jolly rancher and a dreidel. He chose the jolly rancher because Sebastian had often referred to him as "Jolly Adam." He included the Dreidel because it is a four-sided top used to play a type of gambling game during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.

The time capsule was not a project connected to a specific subject. Sebastian said, "I wanted the class to bury an item from each student on Dec. 16, 1999, because I wanted them to come back when they were seniors and revisit their childhood. Graduating high school is largely a time when young adults are focused on the future and I thought it would be nice if they could take a break from that and remember a time from their past."

Some of the original students have moved away but 22 of that class graduated from Gulf Breeze High School this year.

Sebastian said, "I picked this class to bury the capsule because they were a very patient class with me. It was only my second year teaching and I learned as much from them as they did from me."

He must have really appreciated the attributes of this class because he wrote a poem with a line dedicated to each and every student that year. On Tuesday May 15, many of that group returned to meet their fifth grade teacher and to dig up the time capsule that they buried seven years ago.