Topeka elementary class puts message in a bottle, found nearly 26 years later

(WIBW)
Published: Apr. 4, 2019 at 7:36 PM CDT
Email This Link
Share on Pinterest
Share on LinkedIn

A class project dating back to 1993 is finally seeing the results it hoped to accomplish.

A message put in the water nearly 26 years ago was finally found. We share the incredible journey from the senders -- and the people who found it.

"I saw a bottle with a piece of paper in it thinking like maybe it's just a bill or something somebody didn't want,” Ted Knop who found the message in a bottle said. “I looked at it and saw that it was from like a 5th-grade class. I couldn't tell where it just said Topeka."

Ted and his parents, Terry and Meg Knop, were walking along the Mississippi River in Chester, Illinois when they made the discovery.

Once they realized the message had been in the water all that time and went that far, Terry says they were all amazed.

“It was like we didn’t know which was more amazing, that it survived this long, that my son wasn't even born when this was put in the river, or that it made it all the way from Topeka and Lake Perry," Terry said.

It came as a shock to retired teacher Suzette Wedel as well.

"What are the chances of that happening? You don’t hear about messages in bottles very often, you read about it in cartoons,” Wedel laughed.

In May 1993, Wedel's 5th grade class at Maude Bishop Elementary took a field trip and put a message in a bottle and into the Delaware River.

"I don't know if we really expected any results because it was so unusual, you know, we told the student that it should eventually get to the Gulf of Mexico," Wedel explained.

They hoped to track the bottle by corresponding with people who found it along its journey.

In its time on the water, it floated from the Delaware River to the Kansas River, over to the Missouri River, and on to the Mississippi River, traveling well over 300 miles.

Wedel thought it might take a year, instead more than two decades later, the Knop family found it.

“I'm guessing that some flood took it up, it got caught on a rock and another flood came and dropped it and it’s amazing that it made it to Chester, Illinois," Wedel said.

Meg took it upon herself to track down the people responsible for the letter, and eventually got in contact with someone with the Topeka School District to help find the right people, since the Maude Bishop

Elementary is no longer in existence.

“One of the reactions that I really loved was the fact that she said that this was something their school really needed, was really good cool news like this," Meg recalled.

From there she was connected with Wedel, and with the jar's rusty cap, the Knops believe they found it just in time.

"A few more months and it would have been gone forever," Terry said.

Wedel and the Knops say they would love to hear her students reactions, they'd be around 36 years old now. Wedel said this experience shows how teachers can leave a lasting impact.

If you were one of Wedel's students who remembers sending the bottle - let the Topeka School District office know your reaction!

After the discovery, Wedel considers the project a success.