Fun Hunt sends residents scavenging for clues around town

More than 100 Oxford residents stood with their teams outside the TRI Community Center anxiously awaiting the start of a decades-old Oxford tradition last weekend: The Fun Hunt. Some wore matching t-shirts and others donned headbands and running gear for the June 14 event. 

The headbands were worn by Ashley Keeton, Holly Larson, and Bryan and Cherie Hornfeck. The quartet discussed their game plans for the evening: Who’s the driver, who’s the runner and who’s going to solve the clues. 

“It’s our second-favorite day of the year behind Christmas,” Bryan said. 

“You will never see so many minivans tearing around Oxford as today,” Cherie added. 

The Oxford Fun Hunt is an annual tradition dating back to 1974 when Richard Shrider, Miami University’s athletic director from 1964-88 and Beth’s father-in-law, organized the first one. 

Teams of up to six people register for a night of scavenging in town. Participants solve the first puzzle for a clue that leads them to a location in town or on campus, where they search for a placard with a specific symbol. They then open the bag with that same symbol and solve the next puzzle, leading them to the second location to find the next symbol. 

However, the search for the placard at each location is easier said than done. The hosts purposefully hide the placards in inconspicuous spots at each location, either around the exterior of a building or inside visible from the windows. Teams also need to be wary about opening one of four dummy bags, which will add to their final time at the end. 

The team that solves all 15 puzzles and reaches the final destination in the shortest time wins. 

At 6:30 p.m., Beth Luebbe Shrider welcomed everyone to the event. She explained the rules to the first timers, reminded everyone to be safe as they drove around town and handed out the first bags of clues to each team. 

At 6:45 p.m., the 29 teams dispersed, and the 52nd Oxford Fun Hunt began.

The participants ranged from seasoned-veterans of the hunt to first timers. Vanessa Hickcox heard about the Fun Hunt from a coworker at Miami. She created a group chat with her friends, including Lyric Rains-Bury, and recruited them to her team. 

“I expect that I will learn a lot more about Oxford even though I’ve been here for about six [or] seven years,” Rains-Bury said. “There’s always more to learn … I hope to learn more about the geography of Oxford, historical events, landmarks, locations — just more about where I’ve been living.”

An important aspect of the Fun Hunt is that the event is entirely run by its participants. The winner from the previous year creates the next year’s hunt, with the second-place team organizing the prizes. 

“I describe it and explain what it is, and people are always really surprised to learn that there’s no central organization that runs this,” Tim Kuykendoll said. “Some people think it’s run by the city, but it’s just handed off from group to group each year. Someone takes it over and plans it next year, which is really neat.”

This year marked Beth’s fourth time organizing the Fun Hunt after winning the previous year. For her, the hunt is a celebration of Oxford and Miami’s history. 

“I’ve lived in Oxford for a long time,” Beth said. “We have a lot of Miami connections: My husband, my father-in-law [and] I went to Miami, my brother and sister [did]. I love highlighting Miami buildings and Oxford buildings … It’s such a cool Oxford tradition. It’s fun to have a connection to different places.”

Beth’s team last year — herself, her sons Ben and Andrew Shrider, Brendan Bohon, Jonathan Richter and Kasey Turman — became the first team of third-generation participants to take first place. 

For the 52nd contest, the team created each puzzle with a theme centered around a deck of cards or poker. They wanted to offer a diversity of complexity in their puzzles while also spreading them out to avoid teams from getting discouraged. 

Preparations began last fall. Each member contributed puzzles and clues as well as potential hiding spots, even drawing inspiration from previous years. Once the first iteration of their event was finalized, they hosted a testing party with teams that weren’t participating in the actual hunt. 

With the feedback from the testing party, the team finalized its puzzles. In the days leading up to June 14, they hid all the placards at the 15 locations, including Havighurst Hall, the Oxford Vineyard Church, Talawanda Middle School and various businesses Uptown.  

Despite the months of preparation, Beth knew that adapting to any changes before the hunt officially started would be crucial. The weather on the 14th indicated a strong chance for rain, but even something like a worker not knowing about the hunt and moving the placard, which happened at Havighurst, remains likely.

“The resident director took it down because she didn’t know what it was,” Beth said. “We hid it on Friday, [and] we went to check it on Saturday morning and it was gone, and we no longer had access to the building … It was no big deal, but if I hadn’t been able to get a hold of her, we would have had to hide it outside.”

The hunters said the Goggin Ice Center and King Library placards were the most difficult to find, with the latter being found at the bottom of a storm drain. 

The evening found the participants visiting the Oxford Artisan Shop, Salon Signature and the Bird House Antiques among other businesses Uptown. In previous years, participants said the crowd looking inside the windows confused bystanders who didn’t know about the fun hunt. 

The final puzzle led the winning team – Megan and Tim Kuykendoll, Barbara and Jared Bunting, Emily Cluen and Tricia Hillman – to Left Field Tavern before anyone else. 

The group took second place in 2024. With its first-place finish, it is now responsible for planning for the 53rd Fun Hunt next summer. This year’s prizes included gift cards to local businesses and season tickets to Miami athletic events.

For them, preparing for next year means building on the complexity from previous years. 

“Having done fun hunts for enough time, you get used to, ‘Okay, this is a place that was really hard before,’” Megan said. “It feels like each one sort of builds on the legacy of it. When you’re designing it or even playing, [you say], ‘Oh, there was one year that we were stuck because it was under a trash can,’ so now every time you look under the trash can.”

For Beth, the party at Left Field Tavern provided a great relief for her, knowing that her group did a good job organizing the hunt. 

“At the party, so many people came up to me and said they had a great time,” Beth said. “I was just very, very pleased. My late husband loved it so much. It makes me really happy that we could put on a good one, and we were successful.”

Even with a full year to think about the 2026 fun hunt, the winning team is already thinking about potential themes for next year as well as hiding spots. Above all else, they want to ensure that the participants have fun regardless of whether they’ve played before. 

Beth will continue to participate in future Fun Hunts. For her, the event serves as a way to unite Oxford in the summer and celebrate the town and Miami’s history. 

“Even if you’re not doing it currently, you know about it,” Beth said. “People will share fun hunt stories, and they remember, ‘Oh, the year I did it, we used to look at this location.’ It’s part of the whole Oxford history, and [it] brings people together.”