Kids Fit Egg Hunts Into A Busy Fair Week

By STEPHANIE BUNKER

Moapa Valley Progress

The children of Moapa Valley had a double-header of Egg Hunts on Tuesday, April 11. Because Spring Break, Easter and the Clark County Fair, all occurred on the same week this year, local Parks and Recreation staff had to work fast to fit the two traditional community egg hunts into the busy schedule.
The fun began at the Moapa Park on Tuesday morning at 10 am. About 150 kids, in five different age divisions, lined up along the grassy, egg-strewn field to await the word to begin.

The Moapa egg hunt is both renown and notorious among local families for starting precisely on time. But this year there were extenuating circumstances.
“With all of the road construction going on along Henrie Road this year, we had some people get stuck in traffic on the way,” said Moapa Parks and Rec Coordinator Gail Lindsey. “So we waited for about five minutes to start the hunt.”

Once they were given the go-ahead, the eager children made quick work of scooping up about 7,000 colored plastic eggs from the field, each one filled with candy. Each age group had a total of 12 different prize eggs hidden, which could be cashed in for special prizes at the end of the hunt. Prize eggs or not, everyone went home with plenty of spoils.

From there, the action was quickly refocused to the lower valley where the Overton Park became the hunting grounds. This kept the egg hunting crowds away from the Clark County Fairgrounds where the Fair was set to begin the following day.
The Overton hunt began at high noon….sharp!

At Overton, there were 8,000 eggs scattered all over the fields for the kids to find. Again, to make things fair the hunt was conducted with different age groups. The little tike’s ages 0-3 had their own field on the West side of the picnic tables. In the big fields they had divided off sections for the 4-6 years olds, 7-8, then the 9-11 aged kids.

There were 12 prize eggs hidden. These eggs had paper taped to them which told the egg finder what prize they would be receiving. There were all sorts of fun Easter prizes like bubbles, jump rope, wind-up toys, rabbit banks, and stuffed animals.
Parks and Rec staff member Lauralyn Robison said, “its pretty fun to watch the whole area of excitement when we say GO! It’s exciting to see the kids excited about it.”

Robison and other staff members had been concerned that with spring break and the Fair going on, that the turnout at the egg hunts would be sparse this year. But they had little need to worry.
“We had a great turn out,” Robison said. “We were pleased that everyone came to Overton Park, then they can stay and play in the park when it’s over.”