BY DARRELL HALEN

When Greg Samsel and his family discovered a large Coca-Cola sign while cleaning his uncle’s attic, the Windham boy knew where it belonged – in his fifth-grade classroom.

The red sign is now part of a large collection of Coca-Cola items and memorabilia in teacher Michael Miloro’s room at Windham Center School.

“I thought it would be kind of cool to give it to him,” said Greg, who is now 12 and in sixth grade. “It’s a big sign.”

About 10 years ago, Miloro brought in a few Coke items to his classroom, when students had an event, “Bag It,” for which they decorated bags to reflect their favorite things.

Miloro kept the items in his classroom and the collection grew larger and more elaborate to include dozens of items.

“Little by little, over 10 years, it kept growing,” he said.

Many of the items are from students, including gifts to Miloro at Christmas and the end of the school year. Two girls made pillows featuring the Coca-Cola name. A singing polar bear was given to Miloro by a boy at Christmas. One girl contributed a bubble gum dispenser.

“They try to find stuff I don’t have,” Miloro said. “It’s really become the class’s collection, our collection. I think of the collection as not really mine. The kids have kind of taken ownership.”

The collection has become “kind of like a Coke museum,” Miloro said, and his students serve as curators who take the items off the shelves and clean them.

The collection fills three sections along a wall in the classroom. In addition to simple items, such as Coke glasses and mugs, there are more sophisticated things: a 35 mm Coke camera, Coke-theme Monopoly, Yahtzee and chess games, a Coca-Cola frisbee, a Coke kitchen timer, and a small digital clock in the shape of a cooler with little bottles inside.

Miloro’s Coke collection is so well known that even students he doesn’t teach know it exists.

Miloro’s fondness for the soft drink extends beyond the collection – a Coca-Cola clock keeps time by the door, and a Coke thermometer reads the temperature near his desk.

On their birthday, every child in Miloro’s classroom receives a student-made birthday card and a can of Coke. And they get a can with their certificate of completion when they finish fifth grade.

Miloro has even been blindfolded for taste tests when his students challenged him to identify Coke from other cola brands. He passed.

Rebecca Loranger, an instructional assistant, was in Miloro’s classroom recently, with a Pepsi can she kept out of his view.
“He hasn’t converted me yet, but he’s trying,” she said.