Wielding a hoe, Jay Kuehn attacked a crushed empty can of LaCroix sparkling water lying at her feet in St. Paul’s Swede Hollow Park.
“It could be in here,” the 82-year-old Oakdale woman shouted.
Kuehn has been hunting for the Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt medallion for 60 years, since 1955 — three years after the event began in conjunction with the St. Paul Winter Carnival.
She was out Tuesday afternoon but wasn’t entirely convinced she was at the right park after only three of 12 daily clues had been published in the newspaper and online.
But that didn’t stop her and a handful of other medallion hunters at Swede Hollow Park on the city’s East Side.
This year’s Treasure Hunt started Sunday with the publication of the first clue. It runs until the medallion is found and the prize, worth up to $10,000, is claimed.
Clues are posted at TwinCities.com/treasurehunt about 11:30 p.m. daily.
This year, Kuehn stocked up with 15 packages of hand and feet warmers in preparation.
She has been close 15 times, she said, rattling off those years: ’55, ’58, ’61, ’62, ’67. …
Kuehn has a story for each year. But she said 1955 was the most memorable because it was the first year she was close to finding the medallion.
“I said it was under a mailbox that day at work, but when we got to Seventh and Robert, I forgot and said, ‘Let’s go home,’ ” she said.
The medallion, attached to a magnet, was indeed found beneath a mailbox at Seventh and Robert streets later that day.
About 13 years ago, Kuehn started hunting with her current partner, Teri Erickson.
Kuehn and Erickson, 50, of Oakdale tell the story about how they met the way an old couple would — one interjects memories while the other talks.
The two were at a Girl Scouts event, Erickson with her young daughter and Kuehn with her granddaughter. They both had to leave early to go hunting, and that’s how they found each other, Erickson said.
Then Kuehn started having Erickson cut her hair at the Roseville salon where Erickson works, in part to have more time to discuss the Treasure Hunt.
Having a partner the age of her youngest daughter is beneficial, said Kuehn, who suffered a crushed vertebra last year. She can still hunt, but not the way she once did.
Plus, all her old hunting partners have died or are in nursing homes, she noted.
Kuehn’s health issues have Erickson rooting for her even more than usual this year.
“I thought this has to be the year — she might not be able to go again,” Erickson said.
Kuehn — who calls herself “the old one” — isn’t sure about that.
“That would be amazing. That would be unbelievable, but I wouldn’t quit. It would just fuel the fire,” she said.
Katie Kather can be reached at 651-228-5006. Follow her at twitter.com/ktkather.
Copyright 2015 Pioneer Press.