The ‘Cluemeisters’

Each of the men as his own distinct style. Meyer described his style as rhyming and balanced in each entry.

“I usually moved from city history to local geography one year to the next. Once in a while over the 30-plus years I wrote the clues, I used them both in the same year though I tried to keep them separate when I could,” he said.

Meger and Kruschke like to play with words, selecting words that could be interpreted different ways. Some phrases are meant to send the hunter off in the wrong direction while others will hopefully force a person to stop, think and rethink if where they believe the direction the clue is sending them is actually true.

Meyer suggests, “Is it right for Mrs. Wright to write about the church’s rite?”

“Gerry is very intelligent. His vocabulary is a lot better than mine,” Meger said.

The key to writing good clues, Meyer said, is being able to support and easily explain the clue in a way the hunter who didn’t find the medallion can use to understand where it was. But just where is the medallion? That’s a closely-guarded secret. Meyer recalls a year when the Bar-B-Q Days chairperson asked him where he hid it.

Meyer respectfully declined the request. During the 30-plus years he wrote the clues, his wife, Carmen, was the only other person who knew where he hid it. “I tell my wife in case I go toes-up,” Meyer said.

Meger and Kruschke make certain there is only one other person who knows where they’ve hidden the medallion.

Consistency

Meyer started writing clues in the mid-1960s, six or seven years after the Bar-B-Q Days’  medallion hunt began. A handful of different writers wrote clues before Meyer wrote his first clue, but the Bar-B-Q Days Committee was looking for some consistency in the clue writing. By the late-90s, Meyer was ready to hand the job off to a new cluemeister.

Since Meger began writing the clues for the St. Patrick’s Day medallion hunt in 1999, he was the obvious replacement. However, Meger wouldn’t take over Meyer’s job until he found the Bar-B-Q Days medallion.

In 1998, Meger found the coin on the scoreboard at the youth ball field adjacent to Oakwood Cemetery. The day after Meger found the medallion, Meyer passed the baton for the 1999 medallion hunt. Meyer was honored for his years as a cluemeister in 2000.

Kruschke recalls the year in the early-2000s when he found the St. Patrick’s Day medallion attached to a post left over from the Nativity scene on the police department site. He beat Larry Bratsch to the coin by 30 feet.

“That was the year I became a serious hunter,” he said.

Kruschke started the Harvest Fest Medallion Hunt in 2012 to complement the Scenic Byway Half-Marathon. He describes himself as a rookie at writing clues, since one of his first attempts at writing a clue filled with rhymes was “jibberish.” He favors the confusion of writing clues laden with words and phrases open to interpretation.

Although their styles are different, their approach to the process is similar. The hunt for a possible place to hide the medallion begins months in advance. Anytime they are out for a walk or driving around Belle Plaine, Meger and Kruschke are keeping an eye out for possible places to hide the medallion for the next hunt.

Once they decide on a location, the process of writing a clue begins. It begins with taking copious notes about the site and anything they can see from the site. No detail is too small, they said.

“If I can see the McDonald’s sign two miles away, I write it down,” Meger said.

They have found some creative locations over the years. Kruschke hid one of the first Harvest Fest medallions in a running shoe tied to a log adjacent to the bird sanctuary. Meger hid last year’s Bar-B-Q Days medallion under a blocking sled in the practice football field at Chatfield Elementary School. Meyer once hid the coin near a drainage pipe at the north end of Meridian Street. He also once hid the coin inside the roots of a tree that used to be adjacent to the former hardware store at West Church and North Meridian streets.

Land Deal

Meyer once hid a medallion in the tunnel on the south side of what is now Veterans’ Park. He was Belle Plaine’s mayor at the time and needed the permission of a landowner. His request sparked conversation with the landowner that led to an agreement which eventually allowed the city to convert the old cattle crossing into a useful pedestrian tunnel.

The landowner wanted a few billboard sign locations on the south side of Highway 169.

This agreement helped open the south side of the highway for future development and it helped secure the land for the future park.

Once a site has been decided, the next challenge is placing the medallion at a time when nobody will see them. The three men have stories about leaving their vehicles or being dropped off several blocks from the hiding places and stealthily making their way to the location. When placing the last medallion he hid on the ball field scoreboard, Meyer was frozen in his tracks by what he believed was a flashlight held by someone tracking him. It took him a minute to realize it was a solar-powered light at a gravesite.

“This is definitely a city that never sleeps,” Meger said. “There’s always people out for walks at 3 or 4 in the morning.”

Medallion hunts in Belle Plaine have become more difficult and competitive in recent years. Medallion hunters have turned to the Internet to search for possible meanings of otherwise befuddling clues. Meger and Kruschke rely heavily on a Belle Plaine history book for references to sites.

“Google is my worst enemy,” Meger said.

They are also challenged by the formation of teams. When a fourth clue is handed out at a downtown store in the final week of a medallion hunt, people working in teams are located at various sites where teams believe the medallion might be hidden around the city. A person with a cell phone can quickly direct teammates to a specific site.

“This is a game for adults,” Kruschke said. “As the hunters and the teams get better, you have to get better writing clues.”

Copyright 2018 Belle Plaine Herald.