On Friday, the OMS Faculty surprised the full time students with an all-morning athletic event called the Extreme Scavenger Hunt. At 9:00 the six students were paired up into teams by grade, given matching sweaters, blindfolded, and then given instructions. They were then driven to the back side of Okemo, to the Healdville trail, where they were un-blindfolded, given their first clue, and left in the dust by the vehicles that had brought them. For three hours the three teams raced on foot, on bikes, and by wheel barrow, following clues all the way.
Why were the three teams out on the coldest, rainiest day of the season for three hours putting their lives on the line? They had been offered the ultimate prize for any high school aged kid -- The coveted Get Out of School Free card. A prize so valuable, a student would do just about anything to earn it. Obviously the powers that be (Wendy) must approve the day when the prize is cashed in, but that doesn't matter, for the sweet smell of freedom is so pungent, that the day on which it falls is merely a detail.
Who claimed this prize of prizes you might ask? Myles Trainer and Dillon Normyle, the freshmen; they won with such class. They were tied at the top of the hill with the sophomores Dale Tlakington and James Greenwood, but a miscalculation meant disqualification and the freshmen pulled ahead on the downhill. The junior team, made up of Thacher Karner and Chris Teitsma, were behind at the start but did not let the time linger. They pressed on through the mist and never missed a checkpoint or difficult trivia question. At the end of the morning there could only be one winner, and Normyle and Trainer wheelbarrowed in for the win. But behind by mere minutes were the juniors Karner and Teitsma wheelbarrowing fast towards the line.
With the contest behind them, warm clothes all around them, and homemade chilli in them, the competitors could not keep the stories of their struggle and triumph from their tongues. Who knows when the next Extreme Scavenger hunt will be upon us... but our students will be ready with boots, blindfold, and backpack.
