4 July, 2025
Back to 1987!
It was the heyday of the mighty mullet. ‘Gloss’ had begun screening on TV, with too many perms to count and shoulder pads you could land an aircraft on. It was the year Telecom launched NZ’s first mobile phone network, and the
Edgecumbe earthquake struck the Bay of Plenty. Also in 1987, a young apprentice by the name of Dene Skelton had slipped a time capsule into the wall of Katikati’s under-construction new library at 36 Main St. The time capsule was found on
June 24, 2025, when a builder working on repairing The Art Junction felt something slip out of the wall. Katch Katikati accounts and administration manager Kristin Crockett was notified, and with permission,
the capsule was opened. So this week, Katikati News travels back in time – 38 years to be exact – to see what was happening in the Western Bay of Plenty town in the late-1980s via time capsule. Photo / Merle Cave