With luck, she plucked the puck from its watery perch.

Jessica Horwath, along with her father, Joe Horwath, found the Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt medallion at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday in Swede Hollow Park on St. Paul’s East Side.

The luck comes in because the medallion was found several feet from where it was originally hidden, and at risk of being swept down Phalen Creek to points beyond.

The Maplewood residents’ find earned them the full $10,000 in prize money, along with $1,200 in gift certificates from Cub Foods.

There’s a bit more luck involved, too: Although Joe had been reading this year’s clues, this was their first day out looking with tools (they didn’t have their shovel and pitchfork Tuesday night when they scoped out the park) and they had been poking around for only an hour when the prize unearthed itself.

Actually, it floated to the surface of a little stream that runs in the park as Jessica, a 21-year-old junior at the University of St. Thomas, stirred the waters with a pitchfork.

“I saw this little pair of lips pop up,” she said, referring to a laminated picture of the Pioneer Press bulldog mascot — prettied with a pair of bright red lips (that relates to one of the clues) — taped to the medallion.

Jessica at first thought the metallic disk was a makeup compact. “I was going to keep on going,” she said.

Luckily, she was curious.

“I read the back,” she said. “It said, ‘You’ve found it.’ I whispered, ‘Dad. …’ ”

“You’re s——- n’ me!” he said.

Joe, 45, has hunted since he was a little kid but has never before found the prize.

“He goes, ‘Shhh,’ ” Jessica said.

She took the palm-sized disc and zipped it into her coat pocket.

Another hunter, about 10 feet away, didn’t notice what had happened.

But the gaggles of hunters in the park that saw the father and daughter speed-walking back to their car — with giant smiles on their faces — started asking questions.

By the time they exited the park, a small crowd was forming around them.

“We didn’t want to say anything because we didn’t know if it was the real thing,” Joe said. “We wanted to be sure we had it.”

They did.

The Horwaths were presented with their prize money during a news conference in the lobby of the Pioneer Press building in downtown St. Paul three hours after they turned in the medallion.

The pair said they were drawn to the area of their find by clues that referred to a flat space, a big tree and weeds.

Still unclear is how the puck traveled from its original position next to a tree near the spring-fed stream and into the water. The move was reminiscent of the 2004 Phalen Park hunt, when the puck, initially tucked into a green-frosted doughnut, ended up naked some distance from its original hiding place.

Past medallions have turned up in unusual ways, too:

 

  • 1983: Substituted as filling in an Oreo cookie in Phalen Park.

     

  • 1971: Attached to a baby buggy wheel at Wakefield Lake Park in Maplewood.

     

  • 1960: In the heel of a boot at Harriet Island Park.

The find came on the 11th day of the 12-day hunt, held annually in conjunction with the St. Paul Winter Carnival.

If the medallion had not been found by 11:59 tonight, the paper could have ended the hunt and donated the prize to a local charity. But that has never happened.

“It has always been found,” said Pat Effenberger, the paper’s spokeswoman. “Never in the history of the hunt — since 1952 — has it not been found.”

This is the first time the medallion was found in Swede Hollow.

Hours after their discovery, the Horwaths had no idea how they were going to split their prize money. Both had definite ideas for how to spend it, though.

Joe, who runs his own audio marketing firm, wants it to go toward his daughter’s tuition at St. Thomas.

Jessica has different plans.

“Shopping,” she said. “Boosting the economy.”

John Brewer can be reached at 651-228-2093.

Copyright 2009 Pioneer Press.