San Marcos High School’s first Royals came out en masse Sunday to check out their old stomping grounds. They gathered at the steps in front of the main office to open a time capsule laid at the school’s symbolic cornerstone.

With only a vague memory of the capsule being somewhere near the school steps, teacher Aaron Solis and Class of 1961 member Carol Lindwall Bowie hunted down the location of the box.

“We panicked at first because the steps you see behind you … that was all redone about 10 years ago,” said Solis.

A little more research and a lucky stumble upon a stack of old scrapbooks revealed the location of the copper box to be in the wall behind a plate laid at the time of the school’s construction in 1959. The box was retrieved and on Sunday opened. Inside was a copy of the Santa Barbara News-Press, dated May 8,1959, a Masonic Bible, and several rosters of local Masonic orders.

Some current Royals came out to add to the capsule, which is to be resealed with its originl contents and put away once again. A current edition of the Santa Barbara newspaper, an iPod loaded with music, and a cell phone were placed in the capsule, along with banners from universities where some of this year’s graduating seniors are attending.

Sunday was a time for reminiscing as well, as members of the first graduating class toured the walks and halls of San Marcos High School, which has grown and expanded considerably since they were there.

“We had a lot of school spirit,” Bowie told Noozhawk. The Class of 1961 got to pick the school colors, even the mascot as well as name the school paper, decisions that have aged well, she said.

According to Rollie Cavaletto, the school’s first student body president, San Marcos High School came about as a s result of a major population boom in the 1950s and ‘60s, with people coming from all over to work in Goleta’s defense industry. Many schools cropped up in the Goleta Valley at that time.

“In 1958 they needed to build a new (high) school because we had 700 junior high graduates,” he said.

Half of the graduates went to Santa Barbara Junior High and the other half went for a about a year to the SBCC campus, as San Marcos High was being built. A couple of years later the students moved to the new $3 million campus at 4750 Hollister Ave.

Mary Jane Naretto Hollinger recalled things she and her friends did for fun back then.

“Back then you got into the car, and you cruised down State Street, from the Blue Onion down to De la Guerra Plaza,” she said. “On the radio would be the Beach Boys, The Drifters, The Kingston Trio or Eddie Fisher. A quarter bought you a gallon of gas, more or less.

“You could cruise all night,” she added. “It was fun.”

— Noozhawk contributing writer Sonia Fernandez can be reached at sfernandez@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk or @NoozhawkNews. Become a fan of Noozhawk on Facebook.