Parents’ greed ends egg hunt

Ken Smith tells Huckleberries that he’s done sponsoring the huge Easter egg hunt in Coeur d’Alene. Ken, who owns the Dave Smith dealerships in Kellogg and Coeur d’Alene, sez he made the decision before problems with the hunt a week ago surfaced in Huckleberries Online and here in print. Huckleberries published two accounts from parents horrified by the greed and ill manners they saw from some adults trying to win prizes for their kids by grabbing as many of the 50,000 plastic eggs as they could. Ken was shocked, too. As Dave Smith’s sixth Easter egg hunt began in the service center lot at Fourth and Locust, Ken watched from the area reserved for children 0 to 4. He estimated that 8,000 parents and children were waiting for the starting signal. “We were overwhelmed,” he said in a telephone interview Thursday. Ken had planned to move around to the two other age groups, too. But he remained among the littlest ones because he thought they were going to be trampled by an adult. Ken was particularly disturbed by one mother in the 0-to-4 group, sans child, who raked hundreds of eggs into a garbage sack. He couldn’t understand the avarice because he’d purchased bikes and 550 other quality prizes for the hunt. In fact, at the end of the hunt the dealership still had prizes to hand out to children who stuck around, despite the ruthless tactics of prize-mongering adults. “The egg hunt simply has gotten too big,” Ken said, somewhat apologetic. He had no need to be. Rather, he should be thanked for the fun time while it lasted.