Chad Lundquist/Nevada Appeal Nevada Treasure Hunt prize winners Elona and Peter Lathrop along with daughter, Brittney, center, push apart the bush where the family found the leather pouch containing an acrylic medallion Sunday morning at Sunset Park in Minden.
A Carson Valley family uncovered the Nevada Treasure Hunt prize after following 10 bewildering clues to a grass thicket at a small park on the Minden/Gardnerville line.
After searching daily for two weeks, Peter and Elona Lathrop found the leather pouch containing an acrylic medallion Sunday morning at Sunset Park. Prior clues had focused the couple on Minden/Gardnerville, where "fortunes made in old sheep camps," then to a place where "three that intersect lead to scenic lands." Old County Road, Highway 395 and Church Street come together at Sunset Park. The park is also across the street from a clock, where "times were the best."
"I was standing there at the bench, deciding where it could be, and I knew it wouldn't be in a rose bush," said Elona Lathrop, 43. "There was a parting in the grass that looked a little off to me. So when I went to look, I saw something brown in there. Then I asked Peter to reach down and pick it up."
Peter Lathrop, a biology and botany/zoology teacher at Carson High School, pulled the leather pouch out of the tall grass, the culmination of a search through many park bushes in Douglas County.
"It's really embarrassing sticking your hand in bushes while you're walking around," he said Monday. "We didn't tell anyone because we wanted them to keep looking."
The last time his wife stuck her hand in a bush, while searching at the Clock Park in Minden, she was stung by a bee.
It was worth it: The couple won $1,000 from Nevada Day Inc. Elona Lathrop said they'll spend it on a weekend vacation.
"We already planned on going away for the weekend, so maybe we'll enjoy ourselves a little bit more," she said.
Jesse Olson, chairman of the Nevada Day Treasure Hunt Committee, said the committee writes the clues after it explores and learns the history of the selected location. The medallion has been hidden in Genoa, Silver City, Rancho San Rafael Park and the Nevada State Museum. Olson said the week leading up to Nevada Day is when the committee hopes the treasure will be found.
"We hope everybody enjoyed it this year, and we look forward to doing it next year," he said.
The hunt is co-sponsored by the Nevada Appeal, which printed clues to the treasure's location, and by Sierra Nevada Electric.
• Contact reporter Becky Bosshart at bbosshart@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.