MESSAGE IN BOTTLE, SET ADRIFT IN 1986, FOUND NEW WYATT

A message from Cape Girardeau second graders, set adrift in a bottle in 1986, was found Sunday by a youngster near Wyatt, Mo.

Students of Jan Jarrell, teacher at Charles C. Clippard Elementary School in Cape Girardeau, sent their message seven years ago.

Scott Dugan, a 15-year-old student at Charleston School, discovered the bottle at 11 a.m. at Moore's Landing, about five miles west of Wyatt and seven miles south of Cairo.

He wrote the students a letter telling where he found the bottle and a little about himself.

Coincidentally, Dugan is the same age as the message writers from Cape Girardeau.

Dugan wrote: "I'm sure that the bottle got caught somewhere on a bank for several years and finally washed off this year when the flood came. I guess you weren't expecting the bottle back so late."

Jarrell said the bottle was a reading class project.

"In our reading series in 1986, there was a story about drift bottles," she said. "It tells how to make a drift bottle. Six of my students took on the project to make one."

The students composed a letter asking whoever found the bottle to return their letter indicating the time and location of the bottle's recovery. Students included a self-addressed stamped envelope with 66 cents postage (in case postal rates went up) and then carefully signed their names: Heather Burnett, Rick McCarrall, Jill Kirk, Amy Lungwitz, Ryan McCormick and Elizabeth Schreiner. Jill, Amy and Ryan attend Cape Girardeau Junior High School.

"I remember it was very hard to get the letter through the hole," Jarrell said. "Then we glued the lid on."

On March 8, 1986, Jarrell threw the 3-liter Pepsi bottle into the Mississippi River at the Broadway gate.

"I threw it out and it came right back," Jarrell said. She fished it back off the riverfront rocks and gave it another mighty heave. The Mississippi River took the bottle downstream.

Jarrell expected a reply within weeks. "I was sure it would wash on shore real quick and someone would find it right away."

Even though they heard nothing for years, the students kept hope alive that the bottle would be found.

"When I saw them on the playground they would ask me about the bottle," Jarrell said. "Every year they wanted to know if the bottle had been found."

But after seven years, all had nearly given up hope.

Jarrell spoke with the three students still in Cape Girardeau on Tuesday night. "They were really excited. After so many years we never thought it would come back," she said.

Amy Lungwitz admits she doesn't remember many details about her second-grade reading project.

"I do remember us signing our names," she said. "We were just going to see if anyone ever got it. Mrs. Jarrell promised if it were found and we weren't at the school any more she would let us know.

"I haven't thought about that bottle for a long time,' Lungwitz said. "I think it's neat."

The project was the first drift bottle by Jarrell's students, but won't be the last.

"They were so excited about this for years," she said. "I want it to relate to something we are studying, but since this one worked I'd like to do it again.

"It teaches them if they try eventually it pays off."