By Roger Cline SDN Staff Writer Western Texas College has been around for half a century, and the college will celebrate in style Monday morning. The celebration will kick off at 11 a.m. Monday in the college’s courtyard “From about 10:30 to 11 we’ll have people arriving, and we have a pianist, Lori Sealy, she’ll be playing, so we’ll have live music. We’ll start the event at 11 o’clock. We’ll have a couple of different speakers,” said Louise Anderson, WTC campus event coordinator. “We’ll have our current president speaking, Dr. Barbara Beebe, and then we’ll have a former president speaking, Dr. Don Newbury. He was president from 1981-1986.” One highlight will be a changing of the guard when it comes to time capsules, Beebe said. The capsule buried in 1979 will be opened, and a new one — scheduled to be opened no earlier than 2069 — will be buried. “It’s been buried for 40 years,” said Beebe, of the 1979 capsule. “It was buried on the 10th anniversary of the college in 1979. It was buried on Nov. 18. That’s why we’re having our ceremony on Nov. 18 of this year. We don’t know anything about what’s in it. So that’s going to be a lot of fun. For us, there’s nothing online about what was put in it in 1979, because there weren’t computers here then. So we’re going to unearth the time capsule that was buried 40 years ago, then we’ll bury one to be opened in 50 years. The new capsule will contain a variety of items, including an emphasis on current technology, Beebe said. “We’re getting everybody involved in what’s buried for ours, so that it’ll be interesting when it’s opened in 2069,” she said. “A lot of it will be technology, because that’s what is going to change the most rapidly. People in 2069 will be able to go online to see what the college was like now, but we have to go by old documents.” Everyone’s invited to the anniversary event, Beebe added. “We’ve tried to publicize it as much as possible. We want as many people there as possible, including our faculty, staff and students,” she said. “I’ve rearranged their schedules so that the students can attend as well. I think it will be a lot of fun. It looks like the day is going to be nice, according to the weather, if you can believe them.”
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