The year was 1986. It was an early evening at Camp Low on Rose Dhu Island on the marsh in Coffee Bluff. Girl Scouts and their leaders gathered at a solemn ceremony on the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Girl Scouts in Savannah, Georgia by native Juliette Gordon Low.
Jennifer Haddad, then Jennifer Feathers can remember being there with her mom Sherry Feathers who has been in scouting with fellow Girl Scout Leader, Nancy McCorkle for almost 60 years.
Terri Davis (Keldie) and Heather Tuten were also there. They were all part of a group known as the Green Aide Brigade or GABS; with nicknames like BooBoo, Bambi and Comet.
The GABS were cadet girls who went through program aide training so that they could help the younger girls; sort of scout leaders in training. They assisted the scout leaders with running programs and camps.
":It was a warm evening," Heather Tuten said. She remembered they were all wearing shorts and t-shirts. “It was a very serious occasion.”
Fast forward 25 years to January 20th and the weather was a little cooler. Hundreds of girl scouts, daughters and grand daughters, troop leaders and friends, gathered around the granite marker to open the time capsule that had laid undisturbed for 25 years, to be opened on the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the Girl Scouts.
No one remembered exactly what was put inside. Sherry Feathers said she thought it was a girl scout uniform and some pins and a newspaper, but she couldn’t remember anything else.
Heather Tuten could also not remember what had been put inside, but said, “I thought I would be a lot older in 25 years!”
A lot of the older girl scouts, now leaders and mothers of girl scouts themselves laughed.
Most of the girls were 12 and 13 when the original time capsule was buried and even though few remembered what was put inside, they all thought that it would make a huge impression when it was dug up and examined 25 years later.
Before the ceremony began, girl scouts posed by the marker and the hole that housed an industrial sized PVC pipe about 12 by 24 inches, sealed with caps held on by caulking.
After a brief ceremony, the reciting of the girl scout promise and the singing of the friendship song (which thankfully was not sung in rounds), Margaret Skene, CEO of the Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia, kneeled down beside the open hole and with the help of two others, managed to pull the bulky time capsule from its earthen home for the past quarter of a century.
After the capsule was cleaned, the next order was to determine how to get it open without damaging the contents within.
After much twisting and hammering, the cap was finally broken off of one end and the contents were revealed.
Girl Scouts crowded close to the table which was illuminated only with a lantern and the residual light from the nearby staging area, so the capsule was moved inside the main building as many abandoned the time capsule for hot chocolate, coffee and a free taste test of the new girl scout cookie, Savannah Smiles.
A core group of loyal scouts hovered around the table to get a closer look at the contents of the time capsule.
There was an Ebony magazine with Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad on the cover, sheet music for the number one song of 1986: Michael Jackson’s We are the World, an assortment of hand written letters and photographs of the girls.
1986 was the centennial celebration of the Statue of Liberty, so there was a Time Magazine with Lady Liberty on the cover as well as a newspaper article and Liberty coin.
A rusted girl scout whistle and two pins were included as well as a toy from a Wendy’s Kid’s Meal (was there ever such a thing?) magazine articles showing the current clothing style, a VCR on sale for $496!! (You could buy an iPad for that now), banana seat bicycles for sale for $69.99, a signed cup and scarf, but no uniform, though they did have photos of what the uniforms looked like, all bright Kelly green and polyester.
The items will be on display at the annual meeting on January 28, then travel to the Bridging Ceremony on March 10 and the Centennial Camporee in June, after which it will be put on permanent display at the First Girl Scout Headquarters downtown for everyone to view.
Girl Scout leaders joked that the burial of the capsule had been less photographed than the unveiling, possibly because two thirds of the scouts and their parents had cell phones with cameras built in and everyone wanted a photograph to remember the event.
Camp Low, where the capsule was buried hosts thousands of Girl Scout troops each year and sits far back in the secluded marsh, accessible by a narrow one lane dirt road. The camp has fared better than the Boy Scout Camp Strachan which was sold to make way for private housing.
Savannah is the home of the girl scouts and when the Centennial is celebrated on March 12, just five days before the big St. Patrick’s Day event, the city is going to be covered in Girl Scout Green. It should be an exciting event, so stayed tuned to the Examiner for more information on how you can participate and what to expect if you live in the city and want to avoid traffic.
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