Easter means eggs for many and bikes for the lucky

Egg salad or two bicycles - only one family left the Easter Egg Hunt at Governor's Field on Sunday with enough eggs for salad and two grand prizes.

Michelle Nye, with the deft touch of a two-year-old, snatched two eggs with the special gold patch that won her two bicycles.

Ormsby House General Manager Bob Cashell had donated 20 bicycles as grand prizes for the 24th annual Easter Egg Hunt put on by the Carson City Jaycees. Each age group had four specially marked eggs for bikes.

Michelle Nye somehow managed to find half of the bike eggs for the two-to-three age group.

"We just came out for the fun, not the prize," said Paul Nye, Michelle's father. "We'll probably donate one of the bikes. There are a lot of kids that don't have a bike."

Michelle now is a two-year-old with three bikes, since she already had one. Dad noticed one prize bike was slightly larger than the other.

"This one's bigger," Paul Nye said as he handled the blue bike. "She'll grow into it. This one (the pink bike) is the right size."

Joining dad and daughter around the bikes were mom Rosalinda Nye and Michelle's nine-year-old sister, Tina.

"I got a million eggs and I don't have any prize," said a smiling Tina, a fourth grader at Seeliger Elementary School.

An estimated 5,000, maybe even 6,000 children and their parents made it to Governor's Field on the warm and sunny Sunday to hunt for the 25,000 eggs in the thick grass.

"We've got more kids than we've had the last couple years," said Mark Jacoby, president of the Carson City Jaycees.

Some of those thousands got a little anxious and flooded the right field area before the go signal was given. The eight- and nine-year olds took a while to respond to announcer J.J. Christy's efforts to call them back.

"No! No! No! Everybody back! No! No! We are not ready!" said Christy, an 11-year veteran of the Easter Egg Hunt and the co-host of the morning show on K-BULL.

Once the hunt got on for real, Christy had sage advice for the crowd.

"Just think, parents, egg salad sandwiches for the next two weeks," Christy said.

The first youth to claim the bicycle prize was Steve Valdez, a nine-year-old who is a third grader a Seeliger Elementary School.

"I thought I would get a bike," Steve said. "I knew I would get a bike. I have a bike but this one's nicer."

Dad Rich Valdez has brought Steve to the Easter Egg Hunt for seven years. Steve's strategy was to keep collecting eggs even after he knew he had a winner.

"I was just grabbing anything," he said. "I just kept going.'

Steve Valdez is a member of the Boys and Girls Club of Western Nevada, where he enjoys playing pool, tetherball and running in his new shoes. Jacoby, the Jaycees president, also happens to be assistant executive director at the Boys and Girls Club. Was there a conspiracy to get a member a bike?

"It's kind of tough (for Boys and Girls Club winner not to win a bike) since we have 1,700 members," Jacoby said. "Steve comes from a good family. They're always there. I got to know Steve when he was on my Pop Warner football team."

Brooke Montgomery, 9, piled her little purple basket full of eggs. Somehow most of them were yellow and orange - and one had the gold spot indicating a bike winner.

"I was surprised," she said.

Brooke lives in Colorado and was visiting her dad, Carson City resident Todd Montgomery, for spring break. Brooke already has bikes in Colorado and Carson City and the duo wasn't sure where the prize bike would end up.

"We just rode bikes today," Todd Montgomery said. "I'm gonna visit Colorado in June. I might take the bike back with me."