Kids hunt for prize eggs in Plains, Paradise
Photo by Aaric Bryan Four-year-old Mark Wrobleski leads the charge of 2-4-year-olds at the Plains Lions Club Easter Egg Hunt at Fred Young Park Sunday. More than 100 children showed up for the egg hunt in Plains, where the search was broken into four age groups.
About 150 children carried on a long tradition of combing through parks in Plains and Paradise in search of the prize egg Easter Sunday.
Over a hundred children showed up for the Plains Lions Club annual Easter Egg Hunt at Fred Young Park and about 40 children turned out for the Paradise Easter Egg Hunt at the Paradise Grade School yard.
The kids, many of them still dressed in their Easter's best, started showing up early at Fred Young Park in hopes of finding the prize egg amongst the colorful eggs littering the lawn. The crowd of neatly dressed kids readied themselves at the starting lines of the four age groups - 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 and 7-8.
With megaphone in hand, Greg Eitelberg, president of the Plains Lions Club, started each group one by one. Once the hunt was underway, it didn't take long for the scurrying kids to pick up the over 600 eggs that the Lions Club had spent about an hour dispersing. “They're like vacuum cleaners,” Eitelberg said.
There were about 150 eggs for each egg group, with one of the eggs being the prize egg, which was good for one Easter basket. The four lucky winners were Jim Hanson, 2, Jocelyn Carr, 3, Mariah Smith, 5, and Hailey Coe, 8. Every kid who showed up also got an ice cream bar and a bag of candy.
“It's just good, clean, town fun,” said Eitelberg. He said the Easter egg hunt has become an important tradition for Plains and he can still remember taking his kids to it over 30 years ago. Lions Club member Alvin Amundson said the Easter Egg Hunt has been going on for at least 55 years.
Shirley King, one of the organizers for the Paradise Easter Egg Hunt, said she can remember going to the Paradise hunt when she was a baby over 60 years ago. She said that about 40 kids showed up this year to carry on the tradition.
King said the nearly 40 in attendance quickly gathered as many as they could of the 440 colorful eggs, in hopes of winning one of the four age groups. In the preschool group, Cloey French was the quickest of the girls and Jack McAllister gathered the most eggs of the boys. In the first- through third-grade group, Lydia French and Kara Altmiller tied for the girls and Terrence Coldwells won the boys. Madison Offerdahl and Abram French collected the most eggs in the fourth- through sixth-grade group and Libby Story and Ben French collected the most in the seventh-grade and up group.
King said that there was also prize eggs and candy and treats for each kid. She said that the Paradise Egg Hunt was a success. “Even the weather was better than expected,” she said. She said there wasn't as many kids as last year, but the ones that did show up had a great time.