From the moment she burst into the lobby at the Pioneer Press on Monday morning to announce she had located the Winter Carnival medallion buried in the snow of Como Park, Cathi Hogan maintained a near constant level of breathless euphoria, jumping high into the air, sighing "Oh goll!" at regular intervals and squealing at everyone who passed, "Aren't you all so excited?"
Though Hogan's enthusiasm was infectious, there were some long faces in the crowd that gathered as she was awarded a check for $10,000. Notably the face of M.K. Everts, better known by her medallion-hunting handle "Green," who was barely able to control her trembling lip upon hearing that the rumor spreading across the Internet on Monday was not a hoax.
"Don't tell me...oh geez," Everts said with a heavy sigh, as she unzipped the top half of her snowmobile suit and stamped her Sorels on the ground. "I don't like it when it's over. I just want to feel it in my hands, you know? Just once."
Lending a sympathetic ear were Trent Tooley and Jackie Garry, a husband-and-wife documentary film team from New York. They have been in St. Paul all week trying to capture this annual civic obsession. Following hopeful hunters until 3 a.m. Monday, they were asleep at their hotel when they got the call that the hunt had ended after only nine clues.
"We were hoping it wouldn't be found until the 12th clue, when things get more competitive," admitted Tooley, who had that unshowered, unkempt appearance that made it easy to blend in among the medallion hunters who forgo work, sleep, parenting and personal hygiene in their nightly quest for the Lucite prize.
"We wanted to see some violence to sell our film better," Garry joked.
Even so, the filmmakers may leave with footage more embarrassing to Minnesotans than "Fargo," because the conspiracy theories, snowmobile suits and tales of woe captured during the medallion hunt's 50th year are all true. Filmmakers have heard an earful all week: cold and endless debates about whether the medallion is hidden before the contest or during, secret theories that the Pioneer Press employs a "spotter" to guard the prize and polarizing opinions about the identity of the clue writer, whom all hunters seem to agree is "stupid."
"I think they're written by a young man who doesn't have any depth of knowledge about St. Paul," said Betty Gjengdahl, the hunting partner who will share half of Hogan's prize.
"It has to be a woman this year, because there are these touchy-feely words like 'our' and 'beloved' and 'wonderful,' " Everts counters. "Those are a woman's words."
Filmmakers have had some fun teasing serious medallion hunters. Gaffer Phil Dixon created a crowd just by poking his foot along Kellogg Boulevard. Some seekers followed cameraman Bud Gardner to what they hoped would be the next clue—instead it was his coffee break. Fortunately, they stopped short of tossing a dummied Dove box (where the medallion was found) in the snow to see what would happen.
"We realized it was sort of too serious," says Garry, a Rochester native, who has been moved by medallion hunters' stories of piling credit card debts and college payments, as well as the more spiritual questers, who come out in the cold every year for a brush with St. Paul's holy grail. "There have been so many times I've been crying behind the camera."
Disappointed medallion hunters still have a chance to cry in front of Garry's camera. Filmmakers will be in town until the "Rehash Bash" on Sunday, and they want to hear from more hunters about what moves them.
"It's not over for us," says Tooley, who encourages medallion seekers to call him at (612) 676-2147. Sounding like a seeker himself, he adds, "We're coming back next year."
Copyright 2001 Pioneer Press.
