Kent State students participated in a campus-wide egg hunt on Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., hosted by the Flashes Activity Board, with the chance to win a variety of prizes and even meet the Easter Bunny.
With the fun of an egg hunt, however, comes a select group of people who try to ruin it for everyone else. A common trend for the event was people following FAB members while they were hiding the eggs, ultimately giving them a major advantage.
This way, they were able to find eggs early on before other students even got the chance to start looking, due to FAB hiding the eggs early in the morning and the event officially starting later on.
“We didn’t do a start time this year; last year the start time was at 8 a.m., but then people ended up starting at 5 a.m.,” FAB Director of Entertainment and junior hospitality and event management double major Peyton Retone said. “People were getting them [eggs] right away, and a lot of people were complaining about cheating.”
A participant from last year’s egg hunt, sophomore nursing major Chamira James, explained that the cheating from the year prior deterred her from joining this year.
“Last year I was very eager to participate in the egg hunt with a couple of friends, and I looked all around campus from Eastway to the Science Mall, but didn’t find anything,” James said. “Then I looked on social media and discovered that many people posted that the egg hunt was rigged, and many people were following FAB workers while they were placing the eggs in the morning.”
FAB event curators put in hard work to create the event; however, the outside participants put a damper on the carefully planned egg hunt. But students still enjoyed and appreciated the activity this year.
Lillian Swavely, a freshman nursing major, said this year’s hunt was reasonably attainable, and even though she was partly busy, she was still able to acquire eggs and earn prizes.
“I think there is a fair chance to earn prizes; it is a little hard because I had class today so I did feel like I was going to miss out, but I still got to participate,” Swavely said. “I enjoyed it though, it was pretty fun.”
Campus was divided into four separate zones where hunters could have the opportunity to find the hidden eggs. Students were told to take their eggs and prize slips found inside the eggs to the Student Center Information Desk to turn them in for prize eligibility. The grand prizes were limited to one per student.
Members of FAB, Madison Kennedy, a junior early childhood education major and director of special events, and Retone said they went out to hide roughly 8,000 eggs early Friday morning, before the hunt officially began for participants.
23 separate organizations also collaborated with FAB for the event. Retone said it was a nice way to get students involved with different organizations that are usually overlooked because students are just not aware they are available.
“The thing about the egg hunt that makes it very special is that there are so many organizations partnering with us,” Retone said. “You really get to see what is actually out there on the K, some of these [organizations] you might not even know about, because there are so many on campus.”
Even though there were participants who didn’t play fair, students were able to still enjoy the event and have ample opportunities to find eggs and win prizes. A raucous, long line of students appeared at the Student Center Information Desk throughout the day, turning in their eggs and receiving prizes.
Felicity Scott is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].