JAYCEES' EGG HUNT FUN FOR KIDS, ADULTS

Standing over steaming cauldrons for hours at a time sounds like a job best left to someone else, but for members of the Jackson Jaycees, it's all part of the fun of preparing for an event that has become a Jackson tradition.

The Jaycee's annual Easter egg hunt was held yesterday in Jackson City Park. For the Jaycees, the work, and a good bit of the fun, started much earlier in the week.

As in the 10 or so previous years that the organization has been sponsoring the Saturday egg hunt, members gathered Thursday at the Knights of Columbus Hall north of Jackson to drag out the stockpots, mix up the vinegar and dye, and boil and color the more than 1,000 eggs used in each year's hunt.

According to Jaycee Wanda Lorenz, the tradition of gathering on the Thursday night before the Saturday hunt became a tradition almost as soon as the Jaycees began sponsoring the event. It has become a fun time of joking, camaraderie and hard work for all involved.

At the outset, several restaurant-sized stockpots are set to bowl on a commercial gas stove in preparation for the more than 1,400 eggs that will be boiled and dyed.

"We all work in shifts," said Lorenz. "Some do the cooking and some do the dying. The dying is the funnest part because everybody gets together and talks about how Easter egg hunts used to be and then we have contests to see who can make the most colorful egg and who can eat the most broken eggs."

With their 1,400 dyed eggs, Jaycees gather as much as three hours in advance of the 1:30 p.m. start of the egg hunt to hide eggs throughout City Park.

Members say the event is enjoyable because it not only brings Jaycees together, but also parents and children.

"The chapter enjoys this project and we like it because it gets parents and children involved in doing something together," said Jaycee Tammy McClain.

"And the parents do as much searching as the kids do," added a chuckling Lorenz.

Since its start, the annual hunt has attracted from 300 to 400 parents and children.