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Hunt Is On For Sandy Hook Time Capsule

NEWTOWN, Conn. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Officials in Newtown, Conn., have it on good authority that fifth-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School buried a time capsule on the property in 1980. Now, as the deadline to tear down the school draws near, they're looking for former students who might remember exactly where it was placed.

Newtown First Selectwoman Pat Llodra told WCBS' Connecticut Bureau Chief Fran Schneidau that she hopes the time capsule can be found before a new school is built on the property, likely next spring, or else it could be lost forever.

"Once we enter into the development of the site, there's going to be heavy equipment there," she said. "Parking lots will be taken up. There's going to be a lot of disturbance to the area."

Hunt Is On For Sandy Hook Time Capsule

Llodra said that if the time capsule is found, officials will have to decide whether to open it or rebury it to save it for a future generation.

"Typically, there would be samples of student writings and some wishes for the future, some artifacts," Llodra said. "It's hard to imagine what would've been in the time capsule from 1980."

Sandy Hook was the site of a massacre last December in which Adam Lanza fatally shot 26 people -- 20 of them children -- before he turned the gun on himself. Town officials have approved a plan to demolish the school and build a new one on the same property, but residents still need to vote on the proposal. If approved, the school would be torn down by the end of the year.

Sandy Hook students have been attending a school renovated just for them in the neighboring town of Monroe since the Dec. 14 shootings.

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