Captain Shreve High School alumnus tracks down 10-cent “time capsule”

You’ve likely heard of a construction or barn “topping out” ceremony where a flag is used, or scripture marks are left on the frames of a new home for blessings before it is finished.

But classmate Chuck Strozier had a different farewell idea. He copied what his older brother did at Bossier High School in 1966. The brothers believed in leaving something at their high school and returning to get it. “It was kind of a thing,” Strozier said.

At the recent 50th reunion of the Class of 1975 of Captain Shreve High School, Strozier hunted down a dime he had forced underneath a handrail attached to a “metal round-looking support that holds into the concrete” when he turned in his cap and gown.

It was on the first floor by the gym in a crack between the cement wall and a round disk.

Strozier could hardly concentrate on the three-story school tour the morning of the reunion in anticipation of hopefully retrieving the dime. He checked handrails along the way.

He knew he couldn’t just walk into the school anymore, so he looked forward to this reunion. He has lived all over the world serving in the military, and it’s been a long time since he could attend one. “The dime is one reason I wanted to go back,” he said.

Once he saw the foyer, he knew he was in the right spot, but didn’t know the exact location. He looked on the left side to no avail, then the right, a student tour guide wondering what he was up to. He sat on a step on the right and looked up. There it was!

He brought a scribe with him, a tool that marks leather or cardboard. “I saw the little ridges and finagled the scribe in the crack, and the dime spun on the floor,” Strozier said.

I asked if it was heads or tails. He said it fell on heads. “I knew I would get it,” he said.

He then caught up with Mark McDonald, who was in on the initial placement along with three others, one of whom was deceased.

The railing was wobbly but has never been replaced.

It was the talk of the class when he found it still in place. The tale was exchanged with him and four friends over the years, as well as their children.

To him, the story’s moral represents the continuity between high school and his life. “It’s a long string leading from the school to age 69.” He said it helped him remember friends.

It was even a 1975 dime. It is a little discolored and green. He has given it to McDonald, who brought it back to Houston to show it to a classmate there. “It’s like a little time capsule,” Strozier said.

Strozier recalls eating at Gibbons with his wife when some Captain Shreve cheerleaders walked in. He told them he hid a dime, which they thought was “cool.” One said she would look for it. Apparently, she did not find it.

“I knew it wouldn’t fall out,” Strozier said.

“It was tight.” He admits he would have been disappointed if he hadn’t found it.

When his brother returned to Bossier High in 1996 for their nephew’s graduation, he discovered his dime was still in place. The dime had brown water marks, which suggest it could have disintegrated or been washed out by water.

The Student Council asked the Class of 1975 what our senior prank was. There was a story about a horse on the third floor. “I had nothing to do with the horse,” Strozier said, adding that he did bring a duck into the gym foyer. And we had an imaginary student who made it into the yearbook and had a nametag at the reunion. Meanwhile, the teacher with the Student Council was whispering, “Shhhhhh.”

At least it is not a wooden nickel. This dime can still be spent, but it is doubtful that it will go back into circulation.