Students place their own time capsule in IMU

For 67 years, Emerson Keller Elkins' letter, hotel key and Coke bottle lay waiting inside a wall of the Indiana Memorial Union. Thursday, his time capsule was replaced with a new one.\nSenior Emma Cullen, public relations director of Union Board, enclosed a letter she wrote, an IDS and brochures of the Union inside the crevice where Elkins' time capsule rested for more than half a century.\n"This is one of the most exciting things that I've done while I've been here," Cullen said.\nThe Union Board decided Cullen would be the best person to write the letter because she worked as a page at the IMU hotel this summer, and Elkins had been a page when he wrote his letter, IMU Director Loren Rullman said.\n"One of the things that every student wants is to have a part of IU with them and to leave something of them here," Cullen said. "This is my chance to do that, and it's really exciting."\nInitially, the Union Board members decided they wanted to gain student interest in the story as soon as the fall semester started but didn't decide on a new time capsule until a few weeks ago. \nAfter hearing about the new time capsule, freshman Sarah Kon thought it was an interesting idea for the Union Board to follow up on.\n"I think it's really cool because it's interesting to see how much stuff has changed," Kon said. "I'd probably put in pictures or a campus map because things can change so much. I'm sure that in 50 years, the campus would be really different than it is today."\nJan. 15, 1939, Elkins was working as a page at the hotel of the IMU, which has since become the Student Activities Tower. That morning, he placed inside a wall a letter that was just discovered this past June during renovation for the new Starbucks, which will be opening in the next six to eight weeks.\n"Our staff was removing a section of wall, and in the process of removing it, they found some paper on the floor," said Gary Chrzastowski, assistant director of facilities at the IMU.\nAccompanied by several Union Board members and a crew from WTIU, Cullen placed her capsule inside the wall where Elkins' once hid. Shortly after, she helped cover the hole with a piece of wood and hammered it down to seal it for what might be another 67 years.\n"It's a commitment to make sure that the story that we discovered is kept in perpetuity in the wall and that today's students' stories are captured," Rullman said.\nCullen incorporated her story as she wrote about the directors of the Union Board and the war in Iraq and discussed several current pop culture topics such as film, just as her predecessor did.\nIn his original letter, Elkins discussed current topics like the rise of Adolf Hitler in Europe and how he thought that the new film, "Gone With the Wind," wouldn't amount to much. Staying true to Elkins' letter, Cullen decided to offer her thoughts on film and considered including "Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby" and "Beerfest" before deciding on "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."\nAfter graduating from IU in 1940, Elkins served in World War II before working for the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C. Elkins passed away August 27, 1993 without publicly telling anyone about the secret he left in Bloomington.\n"Memories are made in this Union, relationships are formed in this Union and students form connections to Indiana University in this Union," Rullman said. "What's great to me is that, unlike other buildings on campus, this one has all those stories and we discovered a new one"