SEQUIM — Riley Stites and his student crew, who were remodeling part of the 1928 Sequim High School building’s interior for office space, recently pulled away the school’s original lockers to reveal letters from the past.
The crew uncovered a handful of graduation cards and personal mail dating back to the 1940s, some with ink smeared by water damage, all dusty and yellowed in time.
“It seems like we just find the treasures when we remove the lockers,” said Stites, superintendent of the remodeling project at the red-brick school building on North Sequim Avenue.
Stites a building trades teacher for Port Angeles-based North Olympic Peninsula Skills Center and an applied mathematics teacher, has led the remodeling of much of two floors of the southeast corner of the school.
The cards and notes could go on display when the building is officially reopened this year for administrative offices.
Remodeled business offices already are being used in the building.
Administrative offices are nearing completion as well, which will replace existing office space in a separate building next door.
Sequim School District Superintendent Bill Bentley and board members expressed interest in scheduling a celebration and open house once the historic school building’s remodeling is complete.
Bentley and Stites hope to preserve the dated cards and letter in a showcase behind glass.
“It was like a time capsule,” Stites said.
The historic items will be showcased with other existing historic artifacts for the school system’s 100th birthday, coming in 2011.
One graduation card was to Winona (Lotsgesell) Bekkevar, a graduate of the Sequim class of 1946.
She still lives in the area.
The newest of the items found was a graduation card to Bobbi Campbell, dated in 1981 and containing a $30 check.
The cost of the project is about $127,000 to remodel the business office, reception area, superintendent’s office and hallway, a total of 2,631 square feet.
The superintendent’s new office should be ready sometime in early September.
Among those involved in the remodeling project are students Dalton Freeman, Willie Raymond, William Johnson and Levi Seamond.
John Eaton, with Eaton Dry Wall in Sequim, volunteered his services as an instructor helping Stites.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
