Former Joan K. Mendel Elementary students open a time capsule they helped create and bury a quarter-century ago at the school on Yokota Air Base, Japan, May 2, 2025. They are Melissa Yu, right, and Andrew King, center, with his wife, Jessica, far left. (Joshua L. DeMotts/Stars and Stripes)
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — A brick-sized cellphone, a Pokemon card and a purple Teletubbies toy were among the items pulled from a pair of time capsules buried a quarter-century ago in a schoolyard at this airlift hub in western Tokyo.
Three former pupils returned to Joan K. Mendel Elementary on Friday to help hundreds of current students and faculty crack open the capsules in the school’s assembly hall.
Items recovered included a Nokia cellphone with a retractable antenna; a Michael Jordan basketball card; memorabilia from Pokemon, “The Lion King” and Teletubbies; LEGO and other building blocks; a Snoopy figurine; a Beanie Babies elephant; a yoyo; a computer disk; and a collection of kindergarteners’ handprints.
There was also a first edition of Stars and Stripes for the new millennium, dated Jan. 1, 2000. It included a lead story about ID checks at the Yokota commissary, which was also the subject of a letter to the editor. The 40-page newspaper also featured an article about former Beatle George Harrison being attacked by an intruder in his mansion, and a cartoon about doomsday preppers riding out the turn of the millennium in a bunker.
This photo of Joan K. Mendel Elementary's 1999-2000 faculty and staff was among the time capsule items revealed at the school on May 2, 2025. It was known as Yokota East Elementary then. (Joshua L. DeMotts/Stars and Stripes)
Students, faculty and others gather for the opening of a time capsule at Joan K. Elementary School on Yokota Air Base, Japan, May 2, 2025. (Joshua L. DeMotts/Stars and Stripes)
A pair of 25-year-old time capsules are opened in front of students at Joan K. Mendel Elementary School on Yokota Air Base, Japan, May 2, 2025. (Joshua L. DeMotts/Stars and Stripes)
A pair of time capsules are unearthed at Joan K. Mendel Elementary School on Yokota Air Base, Japan, May 2, 2025, a quarter-century after they were buried. (Joshua L. DeMotts/Stars and Stripes)
Fifth-grader Lillie Hawkins was among the youngsters cheering as the items were removed from the long, metal tubes. A stuffed purple Tinky Winky Teletubbies toy was the most surprising thing recovered, she told Stars and Stripes at the event.
“I hate the Teletubbies — they are creepy and scary,” she said. “I didn’t know they were popular 25 years ago.”
The Beanie Babies elephant interested fourth-grader Caroline Martin, who has “too many to count” of the pellet-filled plushies.
Martin brought a recorder to the event, noting that she can play the song “Hot Cross Buns” on it. The instrument is one of several items — including a recent copy of Stars and Stripes – that students plan to place inside another time capsule to be buried for another quarter-century.
Melissa Yu was among the former students who returned to help reveal the treasures.
“I don’t remember what’s in this capsule other than Pokemon cards and a cellphone,” she told the kids ahead of the unveiling.
In the years since she left Yokota, Yu served briefly in the Air Force and traveled to all seven continents. She works as a talent agent in Atlanta and is going back to law school on the GI bill, she told the children.
Yokota’s acting deputy commander, Lt. Col. Stephen Pituch, told the students he was a senior airman fixing aircraft when the capsules were buried. Back then people used paper maps instead of satellite navigation to find their way around, he said.
“There were no iPhones … there was no Facebook … no YouTube,” he added. “How would you live? It was so hard.”
A student and faculty members show items that will be added to the next time capsule to be buried on the grounds of Joan K. Mendel Elementary at Yokota Air Base, Japan, May 2, 2025. (Joshua L. DeMotts/Stars and Stripes)
The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which happened about a year after the capsules were buried, changed “how we act and how we respond to things,” Pituch told the children.
Another former student, Michael Visnyei, didn’t have to travel far for the event. He works at Yokota’s Kanto Lodge.
Another former student, Nashville pizza shop owner Andrew King, said he’d been planning to see the capsules opened since they were buried on May 2, 2000.
The trip to Yokota was a chance to show his wife, Jessica, who came with him, one of the places where he grew up as the son of a soldier, he added.
