Jim Stern, a counselor at Roseville Area High School, stood in front of the group gathered in front of him Friday outside the school, socializing among each other, and held a bullhorn up to get their attention.
“Welcome back to school,” he said. “Hope you had a good summer.”
The group wasn’t high schoolers prepared for the school year — they were graduates of former Alexander Ramsey High School’s class of 1975, gathered together for a tour of their high school, now Roseville Area High School, before their reunion, which was held Saturday.
Besides being their 50th reunion, and their first since the pandemic prevented the 45th, it’s also the one where the former classmates will first see the time capsule their class buried 50 years ago. It was thought lost after school renovations seemingly buried it under concrete.
Originally, the class had planned to have the time capsule unburied for their 25th reunion, but when former classmates Bobbie Evangelist, Cindi Baisi and others returned to the campus, they discovered that renovations had made it impossible to find.
“We just thought we’d come here in the summer, dig it up and be on our way,” Evangelist said. “We dug a lot for a couple days and we never – we had a whole crew out here. We had the custodians from the school helping us.”
Diane Kinderwater, from Albuquerque New Mexico, and John Ludwigson, Lake Elmo, look at a 1975 yearbook from Alexander Ramsey High School now Roseville Area High School in Roseville on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Found accidentally
It wasn’t until around the classmates’ 40th reunion that the time capsule was found accidentally while work was being done on the school.
Among the items — originally buried in a baby casket to preserve them — were newspapers, including a copy of the St. Paul Pioneer Press with a headline reading “Wendy nixes session,” a reference to then-Gov. Wendall Anderson. A Time magazine carries a photo of then-President Gerald Ford. A TV Guide features a story on the Bob Newhart Show.
There’s also a bottle of Italian liqueur — from 1973 to 1976, the legal drinking age in Minnesota was 18. A troll doll, student identification cards and photos and a fake skeleton also were there. There’s also a Rams logo — the team nickname of Alexander Ramsey.
Each of the 550 or so students also wrote letters, either to their future selves or to friends. Classmates got those letters back at Saturday’s reunion. For those who couldn’t attend, the rest will be mailed to them or sent to their next of kin.
Diane Kinderwater, of Albuquerque, N.M., looks over a letter she wrote to herself in 1975, expressing her hopes and dreams, that was placed in time capsule at Roseville Area High School in Roseville on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Even 50 years later, Suzi Ramsey Fiedler remembered what she wrote to herself, she said before the school tour. It included the number of children and career she wanted and the airline pilot she imagined herself marrying.
Classmate Diane Kinderwater, of New Mexico, who opened her letter ahead of the school tour, was happy that she ended up on TV like her younger self dreamed of doing.
“I’m so happy,” said Kinderwater, who has worked in broadcasting.
John Healy, from Lake Elmo, holds a up a 1975 Alexander Ramsey High School year book photo proclaiming him and classmate Lauren Kresch as the “Best Kisser” at Roseville Area High School in Roseville on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025.
(John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Memories
The group followed Stern through the school, asking each other where they’re living now, remembering moments from their time there, their chatter filling the hallways. Many now live out of state. A former exchange student from Finland returned with his wife, the two of them taking the trip from Helsinki to visit the school where he joined the speech team to help himself improve his English.
Most of the school is unrecognizable to the group, except for the gym, which they said is the same, and some of the hallways.
Life at school is different, too. The school no longer has a designated smoking area for students and students don’t just sign themselves out of class when they want to like those in the class of 1975 were able to do. Other things have stayed the same.
“We were involved in theater. We were involved in band, in orchestra, in art,” Kinderwater said. “The school provided us many opportunities, and many students took advantage of it, and were in a position to be able to take advantage of it.”
The class visited the band room, the auditorium completed after they graduated, the auto shop and media center. They caught up, joked around and recalled pranks — including at least one streaking incident. For them, the tour wasn’t so much a chance to see the new parts of the building as it is a chance to remember their time there.
Diane Kinderwater points to the article in a 1975 student newspaper that announced a future auditorium as she stands in the front that auditorium at Roseville Area High School in Roseville on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
‘Reunions — don’t miss the 50th’
At the end of the tour, Stern holds up the bullhorn again.
“You’ve been much, much better than the class of ‘74,” Stern said to laughter from the group.
He wasn’t quite kidding — he’s also led school tours for the class of 1974, 1973 and 1959.
“I joke with my colleagues, I may be doing this until I retire because the 50th just keeps coming for younger graduates,” Stern said.
The classmates joke about who will plan the 75th.
“My dad always said, ‘Reunions – don’t miss the 50th,’ ” Ramsey Fiedler said. “That’s what he always said. Reunions, people compare what you do in your life. But he said, ‘The 50th, they’re all over that and now they’re just interested in your life.’ ”
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