Milliron family finds Citizens’ medallion
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| There are nothing but smiles as members of the Citizens First National Bank’s Great Medallion Hunt Committee present the $1,000 Chamber gift certificate to the Donna Milliron family Tuesday at Westside Ball Park. Pictured are (front row, from left) Milliron’s grandchildren Lilly, Preston, Myah, Emma and Brandon; and (back row) Citizens’ employees Ginger Freeberg and Carolyn Taylor, Kristy Wray, Donna Milliron, Citizens’ Joe Bates, Laury Mavity, and Citizens’ Tracy Makransky and Kathy Hermeyer. Absent from the photo is committee member Lark Fisher. (BCR photo/Barb Kromphardt) |
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PRINCETON — For the Milliron family, it all came down to a little teamwork.
At 5:55 p.m. Friday, Donna Milliron, daughters Tracy Headley, Kristy Wray and Laury Mavity, and grandchildren Preston, Myah Brandon, Lilly and Emma were the first to find the medallion in the 2010 Citizens Great Medallion Hunt. The medallion was located at the Westside Ball Park.
Milliron and her family have been hunting for the medallion for 20 years, coming close a few times, but never before winning the big prize.
“My mother used to help us,” she said. “She was from the Chicago area. She’d come up here for Homestead ahead of time, and we’d go looking for the clues. We’d be out at midnight, five in the morning. If she wasn’t here, I’d be on the phone with her with the clues. It’s been a big family thing since the girls were little.”
Milliron said the family had been looking all week, focusing on parks with baseball diamonds.
“There were a lot of baseball clues,” she said. “‘Stretch’ I thought of seventh inning stretch; there was ‘catch’ in there, like for a catcher; ‘gem’ as a diamond; and for ‘past year’ we thought of a pasture.”
The third clue was released last Thursday, but the weather was a problem.
“There was thunder and lightning, so we were driving around looking at places, but we didn’t want to get out with the kids in a field with lightning,” Milliron said.
On Friday, Milliron and Wray were out looking with Wray’s children. Wray was the first to find it.
“Behind that fence over there is an old, rickety trailer, and it was under that,” she said.
“She put her hand on it first, and screamed, and I thought maybe she saw a snake or something,” Milliron said. “I came running across the field to see what was going on, and she was yelling, ‘We found it! We found it! We found the medallion!’”
Milliron and her family were presented with the $1,000 in Chamber gift certificates and will ride in Saturday’s Homestead Festival Parade.
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