3 St. Paul teens and one of their dads split $10,000 after candy wrapper find in Battle Creek.
A short time into their quest for the Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt medallion, three St. Paul high school freshmen and boyhood friends hit a wall of self-defeat.
Ian Luby glumly started kicking leaves, grumbling over the futility of their search Friday morning on an icy sledding hill at Battle Creek Regional Park in St. Paul.
His buddy, Joe Barnard, agreed that they wouldn't locate it this year. But the adventure was fun, he said, and it would make good practice for next year.
"It's my life goal to find it sometime in my life," he announced.
Later, the two boys and their friend Kai Peterson, 15, couldn't stop grinning over the thrilling irony that awaited them and their "driver," Kai's dad, Scott. About 45 minutes into their search, Joe found the treasure in a wooded area between two hills in the East Side park.
The foursome will share the full $10,000 prize — $5,000 for their find plus $2,500 for having copies of all the clues and $2,500 for having a registered Winter Carnival button.
The medallion was wrapped in a lacy red-and-black garter, covered in a Pearson's Nut Goodie wrapper and frozen in a block of ice the size of a large softball.
"I look down, and I see the Nut Goodie … inside an ice block," said Joe, 15. "It looked so unnatural."
Their discovery, which came after only six of the hunt's 12 clues, tied for the second-fastest time in the 55 years of the Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt. Seekers twice have found the medallion after only five clues and two other times after six clues.
Nearly two hours after the trio's 9:35 a.m. discovery, the buzz had not yet faded.
"I don't think I've stopped smiling yet," said Ian, 14, in an interview.
Their incredible fortune was the talk of several online forums about the Treasure Hunt, including the official discussion board at http://www.twincities.com/. Veteran hunters have spilled their hunches, analyzed every word and shared strategies on the forums, and the boys credit the online sleuths for pointing them to the right place after two failed evening searches earlier in the week at Highland Park.
Reaction on the forums to the news ranged from congratulatory to bitter. One poster went so far as to suggest the kids should throw them a $10,000 party for their help. Another presumed they must have ditched classes and were probably drug addicts, appalling Kai's mother, Jenny Peterson.
For the record, none of the kids were truant. Ian and Kai attend Central and Highland Park Senior High, respectively, and had the day off because it was finals week. Joe is enrolled at Cretin-Derham Hall High School, which was closed for conferences. They all met in the first and second grades at Capitol Hill Gifted and Talented Magnet School.
Asked at a news conference to respond to the criticism from the sore losers, Kai said: "We're lucky."
A still beaming Ian agreed. "Better to be lucky than to be good."
Maybe Ian was the luckiest. He joined the group late, deciding on Thursday night over dinner with them at Snuffy's Malt Shop that he would wake up early for the hunt. Before dinner, he even ate a St. Paul-made Nut Goodie from a vending machine.
The evidence clearly pointed to Battle Creek, the boys said. One clue included the phrase "searching hill and glen." Two parallel roads in Battle Creek are Hillsdale and Glenridge avenues. A "red-letter day" in Clue No. 5 referred to the logo of the nearby 3M headquarters, Kai said. Although it wasn't the clue writer's intention, the word "twixt," too, pointed them toward 3M, which makes a board game by that name.
The teens, who are too young to drive, tapped Kai's father, Scott, to drop them off at the park. They first walked around a lake, found nothing, then hit a nearby playground where they got distracted by playing on the slides. They finally decided to each check out a portion of a steep hill used for sledding. Joe and Ian started poking around a grove of oak and pine trees between two hills.
"Twixt high and low, we hope there's snow," they remembered that morning's clue.
Kai combed the other side of the hill.
That's when Joe looked down and saw the ice block, in plain view. A nearby family equipped with rakes and ice picks just 10 feet away didn't appear to notice. Joe called to the others to meet him at the top of the hill.
There, they smashed it on the ground. Out came the wrapper. They put on their best poker faces.
"We're like, 'Be cool, be cool. Don't celebrate,' " Kai recalled. "Then I called my dad to come pick us up."
Scott Peterson met his son with skepticism. "I wanted to see it," he said.
"I thought it might be a fake." At the news conference, members of the well-organized Cooler Crew treasure hunters snapped photos of the boys and wished them well. Still a little bleary-eyed from an all-night outing at Battle Creek, crewmember Jake Ingebrigtson, 26, asked Kai if he could touch the famous Pearson's wrapper.
The kids said they haven't figured out exactly how to split the fortune, but agreed that Joe should get the largest share because he found the medallion and owned a registered carnival button that upped the prize. Kai said he'll invest his portion. Joe will save his — maybe for a car once he gets his driver's license next year. And Ian seemed too stunned to decide how he'll spend the cash.
In the meantime, they said, they might just reward themselves with a new supply of Nut Goodies.
ICE SCULPTURES HAVE MELTDOWN
Friday's temperatures, which hit a high of 46 — a degree shy of tying the record for the date — brought devastation to several ice sculptures in Rice Park. The St. Paul Winter Carnival's signature sculpture, "Old Schoolhouse," lost its bell tower and is in bad shape, said carnival spokeswoman Mary Huss. So, carnival officials are going to Plan B. They've begun talking to sponsors in an attempt to raise about $5,000, which would fund up to three new ice sculptures downtown, Huss said. If plans work out, carvers could start as early as Monday, when temperatures are expected to be lower, she said. Public contributions are being taken at 651-223-4700. Snow sculptures at the Roseville Oval have been faring better, Huss reported.
Copyright 2006 Pioneer Press.