Wandering about campus and digging in the snow, a University employee found herself under the less-than-pleasant end of a statuesque moose.
She also found herself on the receiving end of a Winterfest prize.
Only the second day into the hunt, Pam Bintner found the Winterfest 2000 East Bank medallion more than half-hidden in the snow Tuesday at the hind feet of the moose statue in front of the Bell Museum.
“I was kind of disappointed that I found it so fast,” Bintner said. “I’m surprised that no one else was out there. It’s probably because of the non-clarification of the prizes.”
Although she had found the medallion at 12:30 p.m., she still did not know what she had won by the end of the day.
To find the medallion, Bintner and Harley Anderson, who both work for the University Department of Human Resources, searched the University’s Web site for statues related to the Spanish-American War, referenced in Tuesday’s Winterfest clue.
The online search directed Bintner to the statue in front of the Armory Building. The statue was dedicated to the University students who died in the war. However, she did not find the medallion there.
“It’s only the second day, and it couldn’t be that easy,” Bintner said. She mulled over the rest of the clue and figured the medallion had to be a short distance from the statue.
Bintner walked around the Armory Building and Shepherd Labs, eventually crossing the street to the museum. Thinking it was a candy wrapper, she found the tip of the foil-covered, cork-board medallion sticking out of the snow.
“It was almost disappointing, thinking about what (the third clue) would have said,” Bintner said.

V. Paul Virtucio welcomes comments at [email protected].