By Stephanie Bunker

Moapa Valley Progress

Local children hustle onto the lawn at the Moapa Park to scoop up as many candy filled eggs as they can get during a spring egg hunt Wednesday. Photo by Stephanie Bunker.

It was a perfect spring day to hold the Moapa Spring Egg Hunt. Although the weather forecast said it would be windy last Wednesday, there wasn’t a breeze in the air.

Local Parks & Recreation staff planned this fun annual spring event. Families flocked to the Moapa Park at 9:30. They didn’t want to be late for the egg hunt, which was to start at 10:00 sharp.

There were activities before the egg hunt for the kids to enjoy. They could make a bunnyrabbit out of a wooden spoon. Snow cones were on sale, and face painting was a big hit. The only time there wasn’t a long line for face painting was when it was time to hunt the Easter eggs. At 9:55 the kids and their parents lined up for the egg hunt. All over the lush green field of the Moapa Park were 5,000 colored eggs, laying in wait to be ambushed by a batallion of kids. And ambushed they were! When the whistle blew the kids left their parents in the dust to gather as many eggs as they could get their hands on.

The oldest (9-10 yr old) group hunt eggs in the desert wash north of the Moapa Park during the Moapa Spring Egg Hunt last Wednesday. Photo by Stephanie Bunker.

To make things fair, there were dividers for different age groups. The babies ages 0-2 had their own field on the south part of the park and the big field to the North was divided off into sections for the 3-4 years olds, 5-6,7-8. The older, 9-10 aged, kids got the added challenge of finding their Easter eggs in the desert wash just north of the big field.

Twelve of the eggs in each age group were prize eggs. These had a piece of paper taped to the outside with a prize number on the paper. The prize eggs could be redeemed to collect a special prize. Some of the prizes included, little and big stuffed animals, and Easter baskets.

Logandale resident Dawn Waite was handing out the prizes to the lucky winners. “After so many years of doing the Spring Egg Hunt, they know how to organize it so it runs smoothly,” Waite said. Not only did it run smoothly but it was over very quickly. Almost all the prizes had been collected within fifteen minutes after the egg hunt began.

Local kid gets his face painted before the Moapa Spring Egg Hunt on Wednesday. Photo by Stephanie Bunker.

“We have been doing the Spring Egg for at least 12 years and usually have about 500 people come,” said Parks and Rec staffer, Gail Lindsay who is the organizer of the Spring Egg Hunt.

“We have been coming to the egg hunt every year we have lived here.” said Rhonda Blackwell who attended the event.

Karla Fetherston and her grandkids were sitting in the grass sorting their eggs after the hunt. Fetherston said that each kid had devised a game plan before the beginning of the hunt. Their plans must have worked out, since both grandkids collected a prize egg. Six year old Andie told her grandma that everyone stops at the front, so she was going to run all the way to the back to get her eggs. Toby is 2 and this year he had the program figured out. He just picked up eggs and put them in his basket as fast as he could.