More than 100 locals to participate in decades-old Oxford Fun Hunt tradition
Each year, several teams of about four to six players race around town to solve puzzles and find hidden symbols near various businesses and landmarks.
Oxford’s unofficial city-wide scavenging tradition, the Oxford Fun Hunt, is returning for the 53rd year since it was started in 1973.
Each year, several teams of about four to six players race around town to solve puzzles and find hidden symbols near various businesses and landmarks.
As there are typically around 20 to 30 teams, fun hunt participants aren’t actually allowed to enter any of the businesses along the puzzle trail, as it might be disruptive to regular foot traffic. Instead, teams are encouraged to look in windows or near the entrance of the locations.
Each team is given a bag full of smaller bags with symbols on them. As teams solve the puzzle that leads them to the next symbol, the symbol they find will correspond with the next bag they open. But if they get the symbol wrong and open the wrong bag, time will be added to their finish time.
Once all the puzzles are solved and all the symbols are found, teams will be led to the final location – a party for all fun hunt finishers.
This year, 21 teams, or around 110 people, have signed up to participate in total, and registration has closed. The hunt is generally confined to Oxford’s city limits. The fun hunt will start at the TRI Community Center on Saturday, June 27, at 6 p.m. and last all night until participants complete the puzzle trail.
Although it’s been around for over half a century, the Oxford Fun Hunt isn’t actually a city-organized event. Each year, it is up to the winners of the previous year’s fun hunt to organize new puzzles and ensure the tradition continues.
The first organizers for the fun hunt were Dick and Carol Shrider, Wayne and Phyllis Gibson and Ken and Jo Ann Bogard.
Carol said the idea for the event was originally given to her by her sister after she saw how successful it became in her own town. When Carol introduced the idea to her friends in 1973, she said she had no idea how it would go over, and she certainly didn’t think it would become a tradition.
Jo Ann remembered when Carol presented the idea to the group over a game of cards and was met with a lot of eye-rolling. But after six months, the event was planned, and Carol said around 20 groups of people showed up, including some Miami University administrators and coaches.
Carol and her children have been involved with the event over the years, which Jo Ann speculated is what has kept it going. Carol remembered one year when a tornado warning was announced in the middle of the hunt, and several participants kept on playing.
“I’m as surprised as anyone,” Jo Ann said of the event lasting as long as it has. “People like the challenge.”
Last year, Tim Kuykendoll’s team, consisting of himself, his wife Megan, and their friends, Emily Cluen, Barbara and Jared Bunting, and Tricia Hillman, took first place. This year, he and his teammates are organizing the 53rd race.
Kuykendoll’s team has participated in the fun hunt for the past 10 years and came in second place in 2024. He said they first heard about it through one of his wife’s colleagues “who had participated and really enjoyed it, who really enjoys puzzles and that kind of thing.”
They were originally asked to be spotters for the event, which involves sitting at each of the locations and giving participants hints for the locations of the hidden symbols.
“We watched everybody come through, and it looked like a really fun time,” Kuykendoll said. “So we decided the next year that we were ready to take the jump and play.”
Kuykendoll said the goal of the hunt is to “have fun, to kind of promote Oxford businesses to the people who are around Oxford in the summer.”
He said the fun hunt gets a lot of donations from local businesses that are used as the prizes for the winners, and one local business typically hosts the celebration at the end.
This year, Kuykendoll said the fun hunt has received over $8,000 worth of donated prizes. Last year, he said his team won several gift cards to restaurants like Pickle and Pig, Steinkeller and Mac and Joe’s, and certificates for free trail rides at Nation Road Horse Rental.
“I love telling people about (the fun hunt),” Kuykendoll said. “I think it’s just a really cool tradition in Oxford, and people are always amazed when I tell them that there’s no central organizers, that this just literally gets handed down from team to team, year to year.”
Kuykendoll said there’s a large bin of puzzles and information dating back to the first fun hunt, and it’s been “really interesting” to look through it as one of this year’s organizers.
He said he remembers one year when there was so much rain during the fun hunt that it created a waterfall at one of the locations along the puzzle trail. The hidden symbol was tucked behind it, making it more difficult to find and soaking the members of his team and the inside of their van in the process.
“We always remember that year as kind of a crazy, fun time,” Kuykendoll said.
Updates, including the winners of the hunt and their times, as well as registration information for next year’s hunt, will be posted to the Oxford Fun Hunt Facebook page.
