Before crews began replacing the gym floor in the Jefferson College Fieldhouse in Hillsboro, a time capsule of sorts was laid down, to be covered by the new wood floor.
On June 23, Roger Barrentine, the college’s director of public information and marketing, and Marie Self, the school’s athletic site supervisor, placed two laminated pages of the June 16, 2022, Leader on the floor at midcourt immediately before Missouri Floor Co. employees began laying down new wood flooring.
The two pages of the Jefferson County Leader include the front page and Page 4, which featured three stories about Jefferson College.
Barrentine said he got the idea to leave the newspaper pages under the wood flooring for future generations after the old gym floor was removed a couple of weeks ago and a page from a June 16, 1968, issue of the New York Times was found. That happens to be when the original gym floor was constructed, Barrentine said.
He said that while the discovery was a surprise, it is unlikely the page ended up under the floor by chance.
“No one who presently works at the college knew it was there,” Barrentine said. “Naturally, given the date and the fact it was from June, it was a time stamp, if you will.”
Barrentine said college officials decided to use a current edition of the Leader as a similar time capsule to go under the floor currently being installed.
“We want to use our local newspaper, the Leader, for posterity and local relevance,” he said.
Barrentine said the placement of the Leader under the wood flooring will not be a mystery to future generations, though, because he intends to place some kind of marker on a wall in the building describing it.
“This one, we want to put the story on social media for present day,” Barrentine said. “We’ll also have a display about it in the Fieldhouse, that it was put under the court.”
The display also will include the June 16, 1968, page of the New York Times, he said.
“We’ll take the original New York Times page and copies of the Leader pages and put them in a frame and it will be placed in the Fieldhouse for future generations,” Barrentine said.
The fact that both the New York Times page and the Leader pages all are dated June 16 is a coincidence, he said.
“It’s the New York Times of June 16, 1968, and the date of the Leader pages is June 16, 2022,” he said. “If this wasn’t meant to be, I don’t know what is.”
Self said she is all for using the newspaper pages as a time capsule.
“I think it’s absolutely awesome,” she said. “It was a fun discovery.”
The Board of Trustees agreed in January to pay Missouri Floor Co. in Maryland Heights $350,920 to replace the gym floor. The company submitted the low bid for the project.
Barrentine said the company began work to replace the floor about a month ago. Missouri Floor Co. foreman Jake Dimaio estimates the project will be completed around July 15.