Helping the Hunt
Published 7:30 am Saturday, April 6, 2019
- S. John Collins / Baker City Herald file photoLynette Perry, with her bunny ears and a car trunk full of prizes, is handing over organization of the annual Easter egg hunt to the Baker City Rotary Club. Kenny Cockram and his daughter, Oakleigh, choose a big, fluffy rabbit as a prize during the 2018 hunt at Geiser-Pollman Park.
The community Easter egg hunt is changing hands this year as the Baker City Rotary Club takes over the annual event at Geiser-Pollman Park.
The hunt, set for Saturday, April 20, has most recently been organized by Baker City Events.
The event originally was a project of the Jaycees. In the late 1980s, the Baker City Herald took over until it came under the umbrella of Baker City Events in 2015.
This year, the Baker City Rotary Club offered to take over the event, said Lynette Perry of Baker City Events, who also coordinated the egg hunt when she worked as advertising director at the Herald.
Rotarian Chris Kommer is the event’s chairperson this year.
Perry said the Rotary Club is an ideal organization to assume responsibility for the Easter egg hunt.
“I’m happy to see them take it over,” she said. “It’s been so much fun over the years. It’s turned into such a treasured event for so many kids.”
Perry said in recent years she has talked with parents who brought their kids to the event and who remember when they were the ones rushing across the grass to grab their sweet prizes.
“It’s important in small communities like ours to keep these kinds of events alive,” Perry said.
Every year, nearly 10,000 plastic eggs are stuffed with candy and prizes and scattered across the grass at Geiser-Pollman Park.
For this year’s hunt on April 20, children ages 3 to 11 can start lining up at 9:45 a.m. The siren announcing the start of the event will blare at 10 a.m.
The park is divided into five age groups: a section for toddlers, both accompanied and not accompanied by parents, near the restrooms (also a section for children with disabilities in the Lions Club shelters); age 3 only, near the playground; ages 4-5, at the Campbell Street entrance; ages 6-8 south of the Powder River Pavilion; and ages 9-11 east of the gazebo.
The annual event relies on donations. Checks made payable to Baker City Rotary/ Egg Hunt can be mailed to P.O. Box 1011, Baker City, OR 97814 or dropped off at Old West Federal Credit Union in Baker City.
