Former Dolan Middle School teacher Michael Rinaldi, the current principal at Westhill High School, sits next to the red cooler time capsule he put together with his former students at Dolan in 1997. After an unsuccessful attempt to find the buried capsule on Wednesday, Rinaldi located the container three days later.

STAMFORD — It took longer than anticipated — almost three full days — but the search for a 25-year-old time capsule at Dolan Middle School is officially over.

After an unsuccessful attempt to find the capsule on Wednesday of last week, Westhill High School Principal Michael Rinaldi, a former teacher at Dolan, went back to the site Saturday morning.

About two and a half hours of digging later, his shovel hit the corner of the capsule, a large red cooler full of mementos from the late 1990s.

“I knelt down and wiped it off with one hand,” Rinaldi said, describing the discovery. “I was so relieved.”

Once he removed the cooler, Rinaldi was reminded of one detail he had forgotten: all of the students in his class signed the outside of it in black marker.

The red cooler time capsule filled with mementos from 1997 from former Dolan Middle School students. Former Dolan teacher Michael Rinaldi, the current principal at Westhill High School, found the buried container on Saturday, three days after an unsuccessful initial attempt to locate it.

Former Dolan Middle School teacher Michael Rinaldi, the current principal at Westhill High School, stands in the spot where he unearthed a red cooler time capsule he put together with his former students at Dolan in 1997. After an unsuccessful attempt to find the buried capsule on Wednesday, Rinaldi located the container three days later.

Rinaldi was a social studies teacher at Dolan in 1997, and at the time, he was preparing for a move to an administrative role the following year. Realizing it would be his final class as a teacher, Rinaldi decided to do something to commemorate it, and settled on creating a time capsule with his students.

He had every student write a letter to a future student in 2022, describing what their lives were like and what they hoped for the future. Rinaldi also used a camcorder to film interviews with the students, which are captured in a VHS tape inside the capsule.

Students then placed items from the era — such as a 3.5 floppy computer disk, slap bracelets that were trendy at the time and popular toys, among other things — inside the container.

Rinaldi then buried the cooler with the help of his father, who died earlier this year.

When it came time to find the capsule on Wednesday, Rinaldi had to use his memory to find the place to start digging. He said his father drew up a schematic of where the capsule was buried, but that paper was lost long before 2022.

As the hours passed, some of the former students who gathered for the time capsule opening started to wonder if the container would ever be found. A number of possible explanations were floated. Some believed the capsule was buried on the other side of the school. Another speculated that trees in the same location as the dig site may have been planted after the capsule was buried, and workers may have discovered it and thrown it out.

After the unsuccessful dig, Rinaldi planned on using a backhoe to continue the search, but that would require contacting a company to identify any underground utility pipes and cables.

The former Dolan teacher said he didn’t want to wait that long, so he tried again on June 11. Plus, he had a plan: Rinaldi figured if he dug farther away from the building he might come across the capsule on his own.

That’s exactly what happened, as the location of the cooler was about 10 feet from the corner of the building, farther out than the site excavated on Wednesday.

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The red cooler time capsule filled with mementos from 1997 from former Dolan Middle School students. Former Dolan teacher Michael Rinaldi, the current principal at Westhill High School, found the buried container on Saturday, three days after an unsuccessful initial attempt to locate it.

Former Dolan Middle School teacher Michael Rinaldi, the current principal at Westhill High School, stands in the spot where he unearthed a red cooler time capsule he put together with his former students at Dolan in 1997. After an unsuccessful attempt to find the buried capsule on Wednesday, Rinaldi located the container three days later.

“I know that that was the schematic my dad drew up for me,” Rinaldi said. “I know my father was proud of me for finding that thing.”

Former student Adam Bull said he was “super happy” when he saw Rinaldi post on Instagram about finding the capsule over the weekend.

“I had no doubt in my mind that he was going to find it,” Bull said.

In one of the videos Rinaldi posted online, he spoke directly to his former students and told them they would open the time capsule together once they reunite again.

“I’m quite confident you don’t remember much about seventh grade social studies,” he said, in the video. “But I hope if I’ve taught you anything, I taught you to never, ever give up.”

Ignacio Laguarda is a reporter who covers education and more for the Stamford Advocate.