The Cooler Crew — a loosely organized group of Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt medallion seekers — has banded together once again in January, not to hunt for the medallion (yet), but to help one of their own.
Mark Evenson, a Crew member from Maplewood, died unexpectedly Tuesday. He was 28. He leaves behind a wife — fellow Coolerhead Nicole Evenson — and their 2-year-old daughter, Kaitlynn.
A headline on the home page of Coolercrew.com sums up the most important things about their lost comrade: “Mark Evenson — Father, Husband, Treasure Hunter.”
The Evensons had been struggling financially, and the young father — who had an undiagnosed condition of atherosclerosis, sometimes called hardening of the arteries — had no life insurance. But the Crew has rallied around his widow and child in recent days, including at the funeral Friday, a testament to how the St. Paul Winter Carnival is made up of close-knit, loyal groups bound by tradition and friendship.
So far, the Crew has set up the Mark Evenson Memorial Fund through Wells Fargo Bank and, at press time, had raised $986 for it — which might be used to help purchase a headstone. The Crew also arranged to have Yarusso Bros. restaurant cater the post-funeral reception for 100 guests, free of charge, and got several floral arrangements donated by Lakeside Floral and Koehler & Dramm’s Institute of Floristry “so he will have flowers at his funeral,” said Susan Michaelson, a Crew member from Apple Valley who is also Kaitlynn’s godmother.
“We take care of our own,” said Coolerhead Trygve Olsen, of Apple Valley. “The Cooler Crew … it’s hard to explain. It’s just a mish-mash of all sorts of people from all walks of life. If I needed help, I’d call them before just about anybody else, because I know they would help me. Because that’s what we do. That’s part of our code. Well, we don’t really have a code, but when your main activity and hobby involves being crazy enough to spend the last weekend of January outside for 16 to 18 hours a day — you sort of bond together.”
Beginnings / The Cooler Crew bond dates to 1998, when the Internet was a fledgling thing and medallion seekers began discussing the clues through the PioneerPlanet’s “Water Cooler” online message boards.
“Since then, the Cooler Crew has grown and grown and grown,” said Nicole Evenson, 31, who first hunted for the medallion as a kid.
The Crew is one of several local groups that make a sport out of hunting for the medallion — a club of sorts. The unique Minnesota activity has been a tradition since 1952; its searchers, with their shovels and headlamps, oddities to the outside world, have even been featured in a documentary.
The Cooler Crew makes a celebration of it, hosting a Pre-Dig Gig hours before the first clue is released and a Rehash Bash after the medallion has been found. But somehow, through the years, the Coolerheads have found a treasure much more valuable than $10,000.
“As a group, we’ve been through a lot over the last 10 years,” wrote Jason Michaelson — Susan’s husband and the site’s webmaster — on the site. “We’ve formed close bonds within ourselves, celebrating marriages, commiserating over divorces, sharing the sorrow of losing family members to the great Medallion Hunt in the Sky — spouses, parents, and even fellow treasure hunters. Santa Dave, RV Bill, Kirk Condie and all the Cooler Crew family members, may you rest in peace.”
Mark joined the Crew after he and Nicole got engaged; he quickly became a convert.
“From that first moment, he was hooked,” she said.
He thus became part of the proud subculture that is difficult to describe to others.
“I remember running into Mark and Nicole in the middle of the night at Phalen in 2004,” Olsen said. “He and I and his wife and two guys dressed as evil clowns were sitting around chit-chatting at 4 o’clock in the morning. It’s just one of those uniquely Minnesota things where, if you told your friends in California that you were at a public park at 4 in the morning in January when it was 20 below zero, well, they’d think you were insane.”
Surrounding Her / This has been a piling-on sort of loss for Nicole Evenson, who has been dealing with another family crisis: Three days before Thanksgiving, her father, Pat Burkman, a cabdriver, was shot in the abdomen during an attempted robbery. Burkman was moved Friday from the hospital to a rehabilitation center, but his health is still fragile and so he has not yet been told of his son-in-law’s death.
“He loved Mark like a son,” Nicole said. “This would kill him.”
The Crew came together for the Evensons during that ordeal, too, hosting a benefit. Now, they plan to host another. The Coolerheads are giving as much as they can.
“The guy who started the memorial fund got a call from a guy who said, ‘I’ve been saving money to put new tires on my car, but I don’t need tires as badly as this family needs a funeral,’ and just donated all the money,” Susan Michaelson said. “Right after Christmas, people are opening up their wallets and asking, ‘What does she need?’ ”
The widow appreciates, but is not surprised by, the help.
“We’re a family,” she said. “That’s really what it is.”
Endings / The Coolerheads came to their friend’s funeral Friday at Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church in St. Paul and shared stories of hunts past, like the year of the Nut Goodie.
“The night of Jan. 24, 2006, the night after you guys (the Pioneer Press) had released the clue involving Nut Goodie bars, one of us got the brainy idea to go to Sam’s Club to pick up a case or two of Nut Goodie bars,” Jason Michaelson said. “So the four of us — my wife and I and Mark and Nicole — went out to some parks and — some of the Nut Goodies had been eaten, some had been opened, some were still complete in their packaging — we were driving around, the sunroof was open, and Mark was tossing these things out of the sunroof into the parks.
“It was great fun the next day for us to go on the Pioneer Press discussion board and read about how people found all these Nut Goodie decoys out in the parks, with people wondering, ‘What jerks would do that?’ Guilty. It was something the four of us had kept to ourselves until Friday, when my wife and I put a Nut Goodie bar in the casket with Mark.”
The support followed the treasure hunter to his graveside.
“A couple of us from the Cooler Crew did lay snow on the casket, by way of burying one of our own,” said Rich Persell, of Cottage Grove.
The Crew’s efforts to help out will continue next Sunday, when the hunt for the 2010 medallion begins.
“I told everyone, ‘Let’s all grab our shovels and hit the parks for Mark this year,’ ” Persell said.
Molly Guthrey Millett can be reached at 651-228-5505.
How To Help
Donations can be made to the Mark Evenson Memorial Fund at any Wells Fargo location. The money will be spent to help pay for his headstone, and for living expenses for his wife and 2-year-old daughter.
Copyright 2010 Pioneer Press.