Students search the Hill City
Students raced through Lynchburg snapping photos and following clues in the Hill City Scavenger Hunt Saturday, Feb. 7. As soon as race packets were passed out, a surge of people sprinted out of the LaHaye Event Space and into cars waiting nearby. In teams of four, they solved a list of riddles that led them to locations across Wards Road, Downtown Lynchburg, and Candlers Mountain.
In some locations, like Sweet Frog and Dominos, all the hunters had to do was check in with a member of student activities. Others, like the Lynchburg Courthouse, required that at least three members of the team stand in front of the location holding their team banner and take a picture. Then they had to post the picture on Instagram with specific hashtags for the scavenger hunt.
For some of the clues, the hunters had to follow what Student Activities (SA) was posting on social media. One clue on Instagram was a black and white picture of coffee surrounded by a heart shape — it was a reference to The White Hart downtown.
In only one hour and fifteen minutes, all the participants were required to solve the clues and complete as many tasks as possible. Each task was worth a different amount of points. The team with the most points won.
By 6 p.m., any teams that were not in the LaHaye Event Space were disqualified. After the doors closed and all the present teams checked in, the points were calculated. The top four finishers received gift cards to various locations around Lynchburg.
While waiting for the winners to be announced, SA had trivia questions based on the upcoming ’90s-themed Coffeehouse. Those who answered correctly won gift cards to Chipolte.
Senior Jared O’Brien, an SA member who worked the event, explained all the work behind the event.
“There’s a lot more that goes into it than you might think,” O’Brien said. “We get here an hour and a half before an event starts. For this event, we just basically set everything up and go over all the requirements and challenges. … We just want to provide a good time for everyone that comes out. We want to build lasting relationships between student(s) … and between SA and students.”
SAMMS is a feature reporter.