In Thursday, Jan. 1, 2009 issue

Local residents spending idle time looking for treasure

The holiday season can be a stressful time, often leaving one with the “holiday blues” when it’s all finally over.

Visitors driving through Albany this past weekend and early this week might have been left with the impression that residents here were having a tougher time than most after seeing the area around the courthouse square.

Seems everywhere you looked, people were slowly lumbering around, heads down with eyes staring at the ground, rolling over rocks with their feet and even pilfering through trash containers on the street corners.

It wasn’t hard times that brought out throngs of people for this post-Christmas activity, but instead the prospect of being the one who lands the big prize this year - the WANY Treasure Hunt prize.

As has been the case in several of the earlier Treasure Hunt searches, the Christmas holiday came and went, and still, no prize yet found.

With a little extra time on their hands, and a few extra calories to burn off, treasure hunters have again taken to the streets in large numbers, searching for the token that this year could net some lucky person an estimated $2,500 in cash and prizes.

Daily clues given by WANY and also posted at area participating businesses, has the bulk of the treasure hunting activitiy centered around the center of Albany, as everyone seems to be getting in on the act of finding the missing “reindeer hoofprint.”

As of press time Tuesday, the prize was still undiscovered and the number of hunters continued to increase.