While sitting at a youth baseball game the morning of July 10, four Litchfield kids were impatiently huddled around a cell phone, waiting to hear the Medallion Hunt clue broadcast over the radio. And once they heard the third clue, they knew where they had to look — less than a half hour later, the medallion was in their hands.
The kids, 10-year-old Sydney McCann, 9-year-old Alexis Hansen, 10-year-old Logan King and 7 -year-old Jack McCann, discovered the medallion in a thicket of pine trees located behind the Fire and Rescue building, near the water tower.
“I feel like Einstein,” said Sydney of her and her friends’ ability to dissect the clues.
Clue No. 1 read, “Peddle the path all around town. Look to the ground if the medallion is to be found.” Sydney explained her friends figured “peddle” meant “to sell,” and decided the medallion must be near a business. And Clue No. 2 read, “What do you get for your next clue? Head to what was once old and has since been built new.”
Sydney said they determined the Fire and Rescue hall fit the bill, and the group began searching in Central Park the evening of July 9. Clue No. 3 read, “There’s plenty of grass and more than one tree around Litchfield On Lake Ripley.”
The kids said because the “O” in “On” was capitalized, it must refer to the phrase instead of the lake itself. The slogan, “On Lake Ripley,” just so happens to appear on the water tower, so the kids knew just where to search for the medallion. Rebecca King and Jamie Wollin also helped the kids search for the hidden treasure.
Watercade committee member Bob Lawrence wrote the clues. He said he hoped to steer people toward the lake with his clues. Lawrence said the first clue with the word, “peddle,” refers to the downtown district with the businesses, and the clue also refers to pedaling the bike path, because a sign nearby the fire hall directs people to the bike route.
The second clue that references “what was once old and has since been built new” could be interpreted to mean the new playground at Memorial Park, and the reference to Lake Ripley in the third clue may have led people toward the path around the lake.
“I intended to steer people in that direction,” Lawrence said. “I expected people would assume the playground.”
Lawrence said when brainstorming for places to hide the medallion, he tried to find a location where a medallion wasn’t hidden in recent years.
“Once I had an idea of the location, I drove by and walked by there so when the time came to write (the clues), it kind of came together,” Lawrence said.
Lawrence said he wrote the clues so kids could figure them out, because he enjoyed participating in a medallion hunt in his hometown as a kid.
“I wanted them to be cryptic, but not so cryptic that you need a Ph.D. to decipher them,” he said, adding, “You don’t want someone to find it on the first day. I was hoping for day four or five.”
Clue No. 4 read, “You have exhausted your search and looked all around. Stay near Center and it will be found,” referring to Center National Bank, where the brat feed was July 11. Clue No. 5 read, “You look and you crawl without any clue, who can you call to come to your rescue?” And Clue No. 6 read, “Watch for the trucks and the sirens that blow. Search in the pines, all lined in a row.”
“It was fun to do because I grew up chasing medallions,” Lawrence said of writing the clues. Lawrence said writing medallion hunt clues has been on his bucket list since he was a child.
“The other fun part was hiding it. I didn’t want to be lurking around in the middle of the night, but I didn’t want to hide it during the day,” he said.
The solution? Lawrence took his dog on a walk near the water tower, and when he placed the medallion on the ground near the pine trees, he said he bent over to make it appear to anyone watching that he was merely picking up after his dog. “I felt all stealthy,” he said with a laugh.
Of the four friends who found the medallion, only King had participated in the medallion hunt before this year. King said he searched for the medallion hunt last year, and even wound up looking at the location where it was found — by the community gardens near Litchfield Civic Arena.
“We were on the spot, but we didn’t look hard enough,” King said. “We wanted revenge.”
The $200 grand prize is surely sweeter than revenge, and the four kids said they will split the winnings evenly. King said he is “overjoyed” they found the medallion, and said he plans to spend the money on baseball supplies such as a pitching mound or a baseball bag. Hansen, Sydney McCann and Jack McCann all said they plan to save the money.
Copyright 2013 Litchfield Independent Review/Crow River Media/Media News Group.