Wichita man finds Eagle medallion for the second time in 3 years

Ryan Philbrick won The Eagle Medallion Hunt on Thursday for the second time in three years, putting to rest a treasure hunt that stretched into the final day’s clue.

Philbrick — surrounded by dozens or other hunters — found the medallion Wednesday evening at Cessna Park East, a Wichita park near Mount Vernon and Woodlawn. He had focused his search at Cessna since Monday, after he deciphered an earlier clue based on an idea that came to him in the middle of the night.

The Day 3 clue said, “This one’s the third” and “second minus first equals nine.”

“I thought that first, second and third could refer to the third time that the medallion has been hidden in this manner or at this location,” Philbrick said. It took another two days before he and his two clue-solving teammates — Aaron McMullin and Preston Unruh — figured out which park it had been hidden in twice before, nine years apart.

This was medallion’s third time in Cessna Park. It was first hidden there in 1978, when no one found it, and again in 1987, when Barbara Hinshaw found it tied to a fence and covered with a large leaf. Philbrick and his partners consulted records from their previous hunts.

Cessna Park checked out.

“From that moment, that seemed like the ‘Eureka!’ moment,” he said. “Our focus was kind of solely on Cessna Park.”

Each clue seemed to confirm the group’s suspicions — and to draw other hunters to the southeast Wichita park. But no one could find the medallion.

It was hidden inside a cardboard flap with Bermuda grass glued to it to camouflage it among the Bermuda grass that had grown over the concrete surrounding a metal plate in the outfield of a softball field. Rain and sunshine helped the flap blend in with its surroundings over the course of the hunt.

The Eagle Medallion Hunt is an annual tradition for puzzle solvers that coincides with Wichita Riverfest. The Eagle posts clues each day of the competition around 4:30 p.m., starting May 28 this year. The cryptic clues direct hunters to a 2-inch plastic medallion hidden on public property in Sedgwick County. The winner gets a $1,000 prize.

Philbrick, 40, first took notice of the metal plate on Monday night while hunting with his 14-year-old son. It included the word “Chicago” — which was in an earlier clue — and “12X12” which was “144’s problem” in the final clue.

He didn’t do much searching poking or prodding around the plate on Monday.

“It just doesn’t look like much is around there,” he said.

Days passed. More hunters combed the park for any sign of the medallion. It didn’t turn up.

“We were so confident we were in the right place, and so much searching had been done,” he said. “You really do start wondering, could the rain have washed it away? Somebody suggested there was a big disc golf tournament there over the weekend, and afterward they had a big trash cleanup before they went home — could somebody have inadvertently picked it up and thrown it away?”

After the final clue came out Wednesday, indicating the metal plate marked the spot where the medallion was hidden, Philbrick dedicated more attention to the area.

“I had a little rod with me that I used for the first time this year to turn over bits of trash and things like that, so I don’t have to get my hands dirty. . . . I was trying to feel around for soft spots or, yeah, anything out of the ordinary, maybe the disguise was a piece of fake grass on top of it or something.”

As he felt around the edges of the metal plate, he noticed something he hadn’t before: it was surrounded by concrete.

“As soon as I knew it was cement, I got goosebumps,” Philbrick said. “I thought, OK, this is where grass could be growing over, this is where the flap could be and just started feeling my fingers kind of around the margins of the grass there over the cement, trying to see if there was anywhere I could get them underneath or feel any sort of opening. I just felt along one side, . . . and the first corner I hit, suddenly one finger slid under, and I felt something solid, and I knew that was it at that point.”

Philbrick insists he did not do any digging, which would be a violation of the rules.

“Not at all,” Philbrick said. “I didn’t even have to lift the grass. I was feeling my way around the edge of where the grass meets the cement trying to — with my hands — trying to feel if there was any place where it was loose, where there would be something you could call a flap.”

Philbrick said he later demonstrated to 20 or 30 other medallion hunters where he found it, lifting the Bermuda grass on top of the concrete several times while doing so, raising questions on social media about whether he had been digging.

Philbrick is familiar with The Eagle’s rules and said he was careful not to violate them.

He found the medallion in 2023 in an old refrigerator at Heller’s Park and came within striking distance of winning last year after he deciphered a clue that pointed to Intrust Bank Arena Lot D.

This time, he said, it was a more enjoyable experience.

“There were so many people around, and it was just a great atmosphere,” Philbrick said. “Everybody was really kind. I think everyone was having a lot of fun before it was found. It was nice being able to take time and let a lot of other people who had hunted a lot of years see it in person. But, honestly, the adrenaline was still pumping even late into the night. It’s very exciting.”

He said finding the medallion helps builds confidence for future hunts.

“After having found it once, it feels so much more possible to find it again,” Philbrick said. “I feel like the last couple of years, I went in with a little more confidence and maybe not feeling so ridiculous crawling under bleachers and things like that.”