A Recap of the 2015 Hunt

It isn't often that I break character as the webmaster of this site, and my stolen persona of Joe Medallion and write as myself, but since there's a wide variety of opinions on the subject, and I'm not presuming to speak for the Cooler Crew, for this I am breaking character.

There's no doubt that this year's hunt was a quickie. Not the quickest hunt for sure, but going 5 clues leaves your head scratching as to where you went wrong and how the guy who found it got there so fast. Going five clues with Snail Lake, a park that's never been used before, leaves you scratching your head even more. The irony of the combination of finder and park isn't lost on me. In fact, I gave Steve a hard time about putting all that effort into writing the Treasure Hunter's Guide, covering most of the parks in Saint Paul, only to have all that work be for naught because his find was outside the city.

Now because the find was so fast, there's a lot of conspiracy theorists out there and that's to be expected but people, you don't have to be jerks in order to have theories. But jerks we have. And I've seen an awful lot of comments like "why do the same group of people keep finding the thing" and "I'm tired of seeing these guys' names in the paper about this". I'd like to know where people come up with that. This year was the first time Steve found it. I hope he writes the extended Ramsey County edition of the guide. I really do. I'll buy one. Maybe more. And when I do you can bet money that I'll have him sign them, just like my other copies are. Then there are Jake and Rob. Their names have shown up a time or two over the course of the hunt, and they are the names people have got to be talking about. I have to wonder if people said the same thing about the Longin family in 1959 and 1961. Maybe Peggy Fritzke and Iola Mossbrugger caught flack in 1972 after finding 1966's medallion. Let's not forget about Kirk Condie's finds in 1984 and 1992. Probably, but we'll never know about it because there was no internet back then.

Let's have a bit of a look at the three names that people are talking about now:

• Steve Worthman: Prior to the 2015 hunt, Steve appears in four stories that we have copies of here on the site. These were in 1998, 1999, 2005, and 2009. Why? Because like I said earlier he wrote the book on the parks in Saint Paul. He's done his homework. If anyone deserves to find this thing, its Steve. Finally, this year, he did.
• Rob Brass: Rob's name appears in a few more stories, and only in regard to his find in 2010, and the tip that led Jake to the medallion in 2007. There's a bit on him right before the 2008 hunt in a story about he and Jake trying to get a back to back in 2008.
• Jake Ingebrigtson: Jake's name appears more than the others here. That's not surprising. He's also one of the most vocal pushers that Ma Press has for the hunt. And he probably has most of this site committed to memory, and then some. Jake's life revolves around this hunt, so much so that he wouldn't accept a job that wouldn't allow him to participate. You'll find that quote somewhere in this here site.

The last time we heard any of these names connected with the hunt was with the non-find in 2012. Since people won't ever be convinced of anything, I'm not going to discuss the matter here. Contrary to popular belief their names aren't always mentioned in connection with the hunt. Believe it or not, the press has actually interviewed other people as well. Jay Kuehn has been searching for the entire time the hunt has been going on; she was interviewed by the PP this year. Jake's and Rob's names haven't even come up in the media since the 2012 hunt.

So where does the hate come from? Beats me, but its totally unnecessary. I imagine a lot of it stems from the pseudo-anonymity of the internet. One can post something and bask in the fact that unless they've made themselves known to the group of people to whom they are speaking, one is anonymous, except for in the server logs of the website in use.

But let me say this to the questioning masses out there. There are very few, if any, people out there that I can say deserve this more than these guys do. Not because of a sense of entitlement, but because they've worked their tails off for it. Jake has pretty much dedicated his whole life to the hunt. Rob almost has. Steve spent years researching the parks in Saint Paul, writing and updating his beloved treasure hunter's guide. To those who say that their presence in the hunt is detracting from the family aspect of the hunt, Jake and Rob are bringing their kids into the hunt as soon as they reasonably can, creating the next generation of treasure hunters, just as those of us with older kids have done before them.

Someone on one of the boards somewhere noted that Steve started looking this year the day before the hunt started, and wondered how you can do that. Its really easy. He got in his car and started driving to parks. Its called scouting. Professional sports teams aren't put on the spot making their picks on draft day; they go scouting. Evaluating potential players for skills they're looking for and whether the player would be a good fit for a team. In the hunt,scouting involves checking out park conditions; things like snow cover and recent changes are at the top of the list. Apart from the times it was found by a spontaneous hunter, I'd bet a lot of finders in the last couple of decades have spent a lot of time doing just that. And we know Steve's been doing this for nearly 20 years.

For a good deal of us, this treasure hunt is a passion. Look at this site. When it started out in 1998, it existed solely because of the Pioneer Press hunt. We've greatly expanded our scope since then. Today, in addition to clues for mock hunts, this site collects clues on at least 45 different local hunts around the Twin Cities and in greater Minnesota and Western Wisconsin. And people in this group have found several of them. Just look at the Hall of Fame: 28 finds. And all the information we can gather is right here. Available for free for anyone who wants to check it out. That information will always be freely available. What's not free is the discussion board site that the Cooler Crew uses. It's at a site called ableminds, a site which hosts many more discussion groups than just the Cooler Crew. They are the ones that charge a fee to post. As a group we have decided to only allow access, even read-only access, to those people who have chosen to support the site we post at, because page views aren't free. At some point in the near future we hope to have our discussion boards integrated into this site. At that point, I may set up a donation portal becuase I'll have to move the site into the cloud from my basement, but the content here will still be available gratis. How we'll handle the discussion boards is a question that will be answered at that time.

I don't know how may times I've said it in the past, nor do I know how many more times I'll say it in the future, but for a not insignificant number of people in the Cooler Crew, the treasure of friendship outweighs the treasure of the medallion. Maybe its easy for me to say that since I've never found the thing. But I know several people who have said that exact same thing or something similar.

The Pioneer Press this year ran an article on balancing camaraderie and competition during the hunt. Apart from the professor at the U and a former PP staff writer, the only people quoted in the article are Cooler Crew. I can only speculate that the reason for this is that no one else answered the open call for comments. When you read that article, you learn that while the Cooler Crew is all about the hunt, we're about a lot more than just the hunt. It should come as no surprise that if and when one of us finds the treasure, more of us are nearby when it happens. Why? Because coming full-circle, the greatest treasure a lot of us have found has been a good number of friendships that exist far longer than a mere 12 days a year. And because they exist for more than just 12 days a year, we're bound to be even tighter during those 12 days a year.

With that, I'm gonna go put my webmaster hat back on. Joe Medallion has a few features to add to the site before next year's hunt.