A mysterious time capsule discovered on the University of North Texas campus is proving friendships can last a lifetime.

The time capsule, left behind three decades ago by a group of at least half a dozen graduates who dubbed themselves the "Wild Women," was found this summer at Clark Hall, where they all met and lived. A team from Facilities was replacing a sanitary waste pipe about four feet underground when they hit the mystery box. The plastic box had the words "WILD WOMEN 10-year Reunion HOMECOMING 1992" on it.

"We thought the writing on top was intriguing," says Carl Parsons, a UNT mechanical engineer overseeing the project. "So, we set it aside thinking people would be interested."

The box came with old T-shirts, buttons, a bottle and even faded Polaroid photos, but the only thing it didn't have was identifying information.

That led to the search for the Wild Women. UNT Facilities posted the box online with the hope of finding the women. After nearly 200 shares on Facebook, the search ended in three days.

"I got home from work that day, and when I saw it, I just went berserk," says Letty Gallegos ('82). "It was like, 'Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh! It's found, they found it!'"

Gallegos, who is now an academic advisor at New Mexico State University, was one of the first Wild Women to respond to the discovery online. Soon after, she began letting the group know about it.

"It's been so much fun because over the years we've been saying we should go out and dig it up," Melissa Waltrip Atchison ('82) says.

Atchison, who is now retired and lives in Van Alstyne, was able to visit UNT's Special Collections Library to see the items in person and take a trip down memory lane.

"This shoe was to show the style of the time. The shirt was from a farm-to-market cycling tour that a lot of the women worked on together. This is a parking sticker for Clark Hall."

She also shared where the name Wild Women came from.

"There was a group who made friends with the guys on the first floor, and they would play cards together. The women came back one night saying, 'The boys called us the Wild Women on the third floor!' And we thought that was fun, so it stuck."

There was also another popular activity for the Wild Women that was well known at Clark but wasn't represented in the time capsule.

"We started a club called Dinner Club. Most of us were poor college students," Atchison says. "We couldn't go out and eat, so we'd use the Clark Hall cafeteria. We would run down when it opened and set up a long table with tablecloths and candles and made sure all the chairs were matching colors. That was the big thing."

After setting up, the women would return to their rooms to get dressed up. They and their dates would have a cocktail hour in the joint suite two of the women had, go down for dinner, and then go dancing at a disco club in Dallas.

"It was so funny because the women in the cafeteria thought it was great," Gallegos says. "They would protect our space for us and made sure no one messed with it. And they would let us leave it there until Monday when we came to clean."

The Wild Women also aimed to boost residence hall life for all students. They were active in the Residence Hall Association on campus, with many becoming its first officers. Gallegos was vice president and Atchison was the treasurer. One of their responsibilities was creating the floats for Homecoming. They were also able to attend RHA conferences across Texas. Gallegos says one was at Texas Tech, which explained the Texas Tech sticker in the capsule.

Atchison says the conferences led to even more activities in Clark Hall.

"One thing I remember that came out of it was the 'Dial a Bagel' fundraiser. We used the hall director's oven and people could call the number and order a bagel. So somebody would be in the kitchen fixing the bagels and the rest of us would be out delivering them."

Other events were talent shows before holiday break. One was a fashion show where each model dressed up according to what their wing was known for.

Atchison says, "Our wing dressed our model – I think it was Peggy Burke Borchardt ('82, '93 M.Ed.) – as a bucket of popcorn. All the activities that the dorm had were how you got to know people. We all dove into it and got to be good friends." 

Inspired by the time capsule's discovery, the Wild Women are planning to have another reunion soon. They're hoping to be at UNT for the next Homecoming Week, Oct. 21-26.

"I think this is living proof that you really do make friends for life in college," says Gallegos. "We haven't gotten together in quite a while, but I know that in an instant I can call on any of them."

There are no time capsules planned for the upcoming reunion.