‘Let’s have some fun’: St. George teacher sends 10-year-old Twinkies to former students

ST. GEORGE — Will a Twinkie sponge cake look the same 10 years from now? That was a question raised during a seventh-grade art class taught by Kevin Pfunder over a decade ago. The teacher told his students the cream-filled treats would look the same, but they disagreed.

Kevin Pfunder, the man who sent 10-year-old Twinkies to his former students, at Dixie Technical College where he is the lead instructor of the Digital Media Design program, St. George, Utah, Nov. 8, 2021 | Photo by Mori Kessler, St. George News

Apparently, time has proven Pfunder right, and while the Twinkies are hard as a rock now, they physically look the same. And nearly 11 years later, Pfunder has sent over 40 rock-hard sponge cakes to his former students, complete with their own unique packaging and a note under the lid of the box exclaiming, “I told you so!”

“It’s not life-changing, but sure is fun,” Pfunder (pronounced thunder) said with a big grin as he shared the story. “That’s what it’s all about – let’s have some fun.”

The creamy-filled madness came about during a conversation about Twinkies during a sixth- and seventh-grade art class nearly 11 years ago. The movie “Zombieland” had recently been released and featured a character played by Woody Harrelson who was obsessed with Twinkies, which may have played a factor in the topic of conversation at the time, Pfunder said.

“We (the class) were just talking about Twinkies one day. Sounds crazy, but it was the norm,” he said. “Talking about Twinkies, and I told the kids in the class – a class of 43 students – and I said, ‘You guys know, Twinkies don’t physically go bad. Like you shouldn’t eat them. But they look the same.’”

A shot of the custom-made Twinkie boxed from Kevin Pfunder’s TikTok video, St. George Utah, date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Kevin Pfunder, St. George News

Pfunder’s students didn’t believe him, so he issued a challenge: They would bring him boxes of Twinkies, and he would collect the names of the students and their parents as a means of contacting them. After 10 years, he would then send one of the sponge cakes to each of their homes just to prove his point.

Some students asked what would happen if Pfunder died before the 10 years was up.

“Well, then I will will it to you,” Pfunder replied. “So legally – in my will – I had kids’ names individualized that I will the Twinkie to every single kid – just in case.”

On the other hand, if any of the students died before the decade was out, Pfunder promised to visit their gravesites and leave the promised Twinkie there.

“And guess what? No one died, so it was awesome,” he said. “So all my kids are still alive and they all get a Twinkie.”

Well, 42 out of 43 students, that is. Pfunder said he has been unable to find the last student, further adding that if she sees this story, she’ll know who she is.

A shot of the decade-old Twinkies kept by Kevin Pfunder for his former students, St. George Utah, date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Kevin Pfunder, St. George News

“I’ve promised these kids the world, and I’m a man of my word,” he said.

In all, Pfunder acquired four boxes of the cream-filled goodies that were destined to become petrified logs.

After the Twinkies were originally collected from the class and placed in a container with instructions not to open until 2020, they were left on a shelf in Pfunder’s garage. He rediscovered the container 10 years later and found that while the sponge cakes were basically petrified and could experience new lives as paperweights, he had apparently been proven right – the rock-hard treats still looked fresh.

Pfunder, who now teaches at Dixie Technical College as its lead instructor of digital media design, went on to spend an estimated 300 hours custom-designing boxes for the Twinkies to be mailed. This was followed by around $400 spent on postage as the Twinkies were sent to former students who would be around 23 or 24 now, he said.

Along the way, Pfunder released a video on TikTok with the hashtag #PFUNDERCAKES in the hopes his former students would post videos of their reactions to the petrified Twinkies that still looked like they were “fresh from the factory.”

A fresh Twinkie, unlike the ones kept for 10 years by Kevin Pfunder who told an art class at an intermediate school in 2010 that Twinkies would still look fresh after 10 years and kept four-boxes worth of the sponge cakes for over a decade to prove it, St. George, Utah, Nov. 8, 2021 | Photo by Mori Kessler, St. George News

So just what does Pfunder hope to see and achieve as far as his former students are concerned?

“Number one, admit that I was right. Because that’s really important,” he said laughing before noting he originally had a policy while teaching at intermediate school of there being no contact or following over social media from students until two years after they graduated high school. With that out of the way now, he said it was fun to see where his old students are in life now.

“It’s always fun to see what happened to students – what they’re doing and what they’ve accomplished,” he said. “Who’s a dad, who’s a mom, who’s working in this field, who was working in that field. Every once in a while you’re really surprised at what they did. And I just think it’d be really cool to see what they’re doing with their life. Yeah, that’s really all it was. It would be kind of cool (to see that).”

So, have any of those old students given the desired video reply yet?

“So far, no videos.” Pfunder said, though some had posted getting the ancient Twinkies on their Facebook stories. “It’s kinda hard to track. But yeah, no videos so far, which is kind of depressing. But it’s all right. It was only, I don’t know, 300 hours of my life making these things and about $400 in postage. It’s not a big deal.”

Pfunder was grinning and laughing the whole time he spoke.

For those who see the story and want to nitpick the fact it is now 2021, Pfunder said the 300 hours of designing the custom packaging, and life in general, delayed mailing the Twinkies out by nearly a year.

“I started in 2020 to make everything and send it out,” he said. “Life got in the way. So yeah, it’s 2021 … but I did it.”

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Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2021, all rights reserved.

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