Persistence pays off for half-dozen medallion finders, who nevertheless express amazement at their success
They had a home base, where husbands and children hunkered down at their computers with clues and maps, and they had passwords and phrases planned such as “I need a Kleenex,” and “Mary, what time do you have to be at work?” to alert one another (without letting others know) that they had found the medallion for the Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt II.
Five middle-age moms, along with one of their sons, they were veteran hunters and organized. Individually, in pairs and as a group, they had won other treasure hunts (five-time winners of the White Bear Lake medallion), are good at unscrambling clues, and they had the right tools (their own, not their husbands’, they want everyone to know).
But still, “you never think you’re going to get it,” said Ginny Jarombek, 54, of Shoreview. Like an estimated 300 other medallion hunters in Roseville’s Central Park, they were waiting for the scheduled 11:30 p.m. release of the ninth and final Treasure Hunt II clue Wednesday night. But unlike others who were warming up at a nearby bonfire, they thought, “We might as well dig a little bit while we wait,” said Jarombek.
Leaves had been dug up, turned over and scattered everywhere, leaving scarcely a spot of untouched snow in the park, and the area they were exploring, a wooded spot between the Lexington Avenue parking lot and Bennett Lake, was no exception. Other hunters already had combed the spot where Joyce Banken, 47, of White Bear Lake, stood in churned snow and soil.
Banken, who was not sure what the medallion would actually look like, halfheartedly swiped two or three times at the frozen earth. Something that had been stuck, frozen in the ground, popped up from the dirt.
“I thought, ‘Wow, it looks round,” she recalled. The object was translucent but with a clouded, frosted surface. It was dirty, and in the dark, Banken had trouble reading the words written on it.
“Is this it?” she asked as she brought it over to Janel Donegan, her fraternal twin.
“Uh. Yeah,” Donegan, of Hugo, answered in a tone that translated as “Well, du-u-uh. ”
Banken quickly stuffed the medallion into a pocket, but after all the planning, the group had failed to agree on their passwords for that night.
“We have to go to the bathroom,” they said, and when one of the friends hesitated and appeared puzzled about the direction they had begun walking, they said, “Right now!”
They walked toward the parking lot, trying not to draw attention by appearing excited or in a hurry. Once inside the car, they all screamed. They had arrived at the park about a half-hour earlier, after playing volleyball as a recreational team at John Glenn Middle School in Maplewood.
Their hunt had begun last week on Thursday morning at the end of the park near Dale Street. On Friday, Donegan hired a limousine to drive about 12 friends, who dubbed themselves “The Clueless Roamers,” to the park. They were dropped off near Victoria Street and picked up near Lexington. The limo driver also drove to the Pioneer Press and returned with that night’s clue.
In the following days, various group members continued to search individually and in pairs, working their way generally from east to west, certain that Central Park was the treasure site “from the get-go,” said Jarombek, whose husband grew up in Roseville and whose family has frequented the park throughout their lives.
Clues they said were most puzzling were “whites of their eyes,” and the reference to a walk in the park being a lark “if cell phones are left at home.” They were well aware of word puzzles from past years but didn’t discover the anagram for “Roseville Central” contained in Clue 4.
The winners, who also included Amy Wilson, 45, of Mendota Heights, and Mary Brown, 45, and her son, Dan, 16, of Mahtomedi, all wore red fleece jackets and jeans when they appeared at a news conference in the Pioneer Press lobby Thursday to accept a large cardboard facsimile of their check from publisher Par Ridder. The group receives $5,000, the maximum cash prize in Treasure Hunt II, which was scheduled when the initial contest ended Jan. 23 after just three of the dozen clues.
Two names – Banken’s and Donegan’s – were written on the giant check, and Donegan said they have not yet decided how they will spend the money, whether to share it with the other four in the group or how to split it if they do.
“It’s not that much, and it’s for the fun of it anyway,” Jaromek said.
Ellen Tomson can be reached at etomson@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5455.
Online: Go to www.twincities.com to read the Treasure Hunt II clues and their explanations.
Copyright 2007 Pioneer Press.