Lucille Hogan spent the morning of Thursday, Sept. 6, going to mass, then having coffee with friends, and also stopping by to watch some demolition of the Rice Street bridge.
Then, she opened the print edition of the Jordan Independent, read the latest Heimatfest medallion clue, and went out searching.
Hogan found the medallion at the base of a bush along O’Day Drive — one of many, many bushes along that road.
“I haven’t looked for it this year, until now. This is the first time I went out,” Hogan said at about noon on the day of the big find.
In her solo search, Hogan parked along the road, then walked all the way down one side of the road looking in the bushes. Then, on the other side, she skipped many of the bushes, started looking again, and almost gave up.
“I thought, Oh, check a few more,” she said.
Her diligence paid off. A clue that pointed searchers to road in the southeast part of town led her to the find. O’Day Drive is one of the most southeastern streets in town, Hogan said, and a clue also mentioned bushes.
“So I was looking for low bushes in this corner of town,” Hogan said.
Hogan worked for Northern States Power in Jordan for 30 years, retiring from now-Xcel Energy in 1992. She said she knows the streets in Jordan well from working at NSP.
Hogan was definitely surprised to find the medallion, she said. Although there had been reports of people going out at midnight to search, Hogan said she did not see anyone in the half-hour she was searching along O’Day Drive.
“Couldn’t hardly believe it — there it actually is,” Hogan said.
Gil Hartman, who searches for the medallion with fervor each year, will have to wait for next year to try his luck.
“Gil will be mad at me for only going out there such a short time and finding it,” Hogan said.
Others who search in the early morning will also have to wait. Those searchers had a head start on Hogan, who said she only gets the clues when she reads the newspaper’s print edition.
“I never thought that was quite fair,” Hogan said. “I showed them.”
Now, she’s contemplating what to do with the Jordan dollars awarded the winner, and of course basking in the glory of finding the prized medallion, during a search that went longer than most years — almost to last Saturday’s Heimatfest.
“The low bushes and the southeast street is what led me here. I’m just lucky,” Hogan said.
Copyright 2012 Jordan Independent/Southwest News Media/Media News Group.