Jo Murren finds 'Brandon's Christmas Spirit' ornament
Brandon resident, turned sleuth, Jo Murren was the first to find “Brandon’s Christmas Spirit” ornament. The specially-made ornament was hidden behind the wooden American flag positioned outside the front door of the Journal office.
Jo Murren’s a clever one!
The Brandon woman was clever enough to deduct where the “Finding Brandon’s Christmas Spirit” ornament was hid. She notified the Brandon Valley Journal on Friday that she indeed had “Found Brandon’s Christmas Spirit,” and for her sluething efforts, Murren was rewarded with a wealth of prizes.
Murren said she used the week one clue to brainstorm.
“It was pretty much just brainstorming on what the mouse could be, whether it was something ‘fitness” because it was ‘fit for a mouse’ or the ‘mouse ran up the clock,’ things like that,” she said.
Last week’s clue, as it turns out, is what led her to the ornament.
“After the partial clue, ‘red, white and blue,’ then I started going around looking for flags. I searched across the street at the Veterans Memorial, downtown, I went down to the Fire Hall, and then I was on my way to the Post Office and drove past here (the Journal) and saw your flag out front on the wooden pallet and I went, ‘Yes! That’s it!’”
Murren next called her husband, John, who was having a cup of coffee with a friend, telling him that once he got home she wanted him to take her ‘up town.’
“He was going, ‘Why?’ so I whispered it into the phone and said, ‘Because I know where it’s at!’”
Upon John’s arrival home, the Murren’s drove to the Journal parking lot, but Jo was adamant that they not arrive until at least 5:10.
“I wanted to make sure no one was here,” she said. “Once we got here, he parked a few spots away, gets out of the car and just kind of stands there like, ‘Oh, dear Lord, here we go …’ He was going to try to prove me wrong, and here I am bending over and I found it. I felt like I was robbing something, so I grabbed it and ran to the car and said, ‘Let’s go!’”
Murren said she’s participated in the hunt the past three years, and said she knew she was close the first year when the ornament was hidden at Pioneer Park.
“I do try every year, because I think it’s fun,” she said. “And what fun is a game if nobody participates?”
Murren’s prize package is compliments of generous donations from local businesses and the Brandon Valley Journal. The following is a list of businesses and their prize donations to the fourth annual “Finding Brandon’s Christmas Spirit” hunt: Family Floors & Furniture, rug; Today’s Family Dentistry, electric toothbrush; Dakota Sports, assortment of sportswear; Beautique, candle and gift card; Tally Ho Art Gallery, prints, Lynx journal, bath bomb from Braxton’s Bubbles; Anytime Fitness, gift card for personal training; Tailgator’s, gift card; Brandon Steakhouse, gift card; Expressway, gift card; Love that Look, hair products; Dawn Olmstead, BV Journal/Trader sales & marketing director, air popcorn popper; Brandon Valley Journal, Instapot.
