The variety was fascinating, Tom Medema, a retired National Park Service official and project manager for the time capsule, told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad there wasn\u2019t really a prescription for it,\u201d he said. \u201cI know that was hard for them, but in the end, it was just up to them to represent themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the items reflect dark historical times, Medema said, as well as the nation\u2019s current challenges. But an air of optimism still surrounded the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s great hope in what this capsule represents and the messages that are put in it,\u201d he said. \u201cSomething about this capsule has been truly uplifting for everyone who\u2019s been involved in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
America250 said the final contents of the capsule will be revealed before July 4. Initial confirmed contents include select items from the 2026 Rose Parade, student submissions from America250\u2019s America\u2019s Field Trip contest, sports memorabilia from national league partners, a handheld flag from an America Waves event, and items from Congress, the Supreme Court and the executive branch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The variety was fascinating, Tom Medema, a retired National Park Service official and project manager for the time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-312473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}