Central Spirit Scavenger Hunt sends students all over CMU’s campus

Students came back to Finch Fieldhouse tired, out of breath, sweaty and surprised at how far they had to run Monday night.

“It was funny when I was tired and everyone was running; we were all still working together to get something done,” said Flushing freshman Alex Lockhart.

The Quest for Central Spirit Scavenger Hunt throughout campus Monday night gave its participants a workout while searching for clues.

The hunt was part of the Maroon Cup and Golden Goblet competition during Homecoming week.

Twenty teams of ten members each took part in the hunt. The hunt took place in two waves, one at 6 p.m. and the other at 7 p.m. Teams took about 45 minutes to an hour to complete the hunt.

The scavenger hunt began at Finch Fieldhouse and led teams from the Towers to Warriner Mall, several other buildings, making a final stop at the library before finishing at Finch.

“We probably ran two miles, easily,” said Flushing freshman Melanie Smith.

The challenges included a baseball bat relay race, a hula-hoop race, and ice-block melting race, Sudoku and cryptography, a basketball challenge and a ‘buried treasure’ challenge, where one member had to eat through a whipped cream pie to find a token.

“Definitely eating the whipped cream pie — I was looking for a coin that I almost ate,” said Prudenville sophomore Andrew Kreiner. Smith was right, as the route her group followed was about 2.8 miles. Smith was part of a group of third floor Thorpe Hall students and decided to do the hunt last-minute.

“I like how we all came together at the end, because yesterday we didn’t have a team,” said New Boston freshman Shawn Knight, who organized the Thorpe Hall group.

Some students joined the hunt because of its similarity to reality television.

“It’s kind of like the Amazing Race, where you do a challenge and get a clue, and we get tokens when we’re done,” said Ohio freshman Allie Hendricks.

Kreiner organized a group of ten from Barnes Hall, which consisted mostly of sophomores.

The teams that returned first got the most points, but all teams received participation points.