Nicholas Patterson holds Great US Treasure Hunt coin, found under a bleacher seat at Cargill Park in Shreveport, LA
Father-Daughter Puzzle Solvers Crack the Code to Find Treasure Hunt's Eighth Coin
The father-daughter team of David and Talia Cohen of Atlanta, Georgia used the “Omar at the Wire” puzzle, a rebus, in the contest’s clue book to pinpoint the location, a bleacher at Field 13 of the Cargill Sports Complex.
The picture puzzle featured legendary actor Omar Sharif in a whimsical portrait of the star celebrating his first NASCAR victory with a bottle of port wine, pointing to a gill on his fish-like car, “The Desert Dragonfish”. The car’s number was 13. Sharif-port, Car-gill, 13.
Neither David nor Talia knew anyone in Shreveport, so they called the Cargill Sports Complex directly, looking for an employee who might be able to search for the coin and split the contest’s $1,000 prize.
Talia hit the jackpot when Nicholas Patterson, a crew lead at the facility, answered the call.
Patterson was understandably skeptical at first, but Talia convinced him to search underneath the bleachers at Field 13.
“I have an adventurous attitude,” Patterson later noted. “I work around kids, and have kids of my own.” So he soon found himself checking the bleachers at Field 13, looking for a treasure that was hidden, but not buried.
His search came up empty, but Talia convinced him to try again. “I was looking with my eyes first,” Patterson said. “But when I felt around with my fingers, it was well up underneath the bench. Found it!”
Great US Treasure Hunt creative director David Steele felt confident the Cargill coin would never be discovered accidentally. “You really had to know what you were searching for, and exactly where it was,” Steele said after Patterson’s find. “The coin couldn’t be seen, you had to feel with your hands, and that little bleacher seat isn’t the kind of place you’d just stick your fingers into.”
Hunt president Jeff Kessler noted that while preparing for an earlier Hunt, they had hidden another coin under that same bleacher seat, all the way back in 2021. “We retrieved our earlier coin in September, and it had been stuck in place for three years,” Kessler reported. “So we knew nobody was going to accidentally find this one.”
Patterson is the eighth winner in the nationwide Great US Treasure Hunt, which has so far awarded $8,000 in prizes, with $3,000 still up for grabs. Three coins remain hidden in three different states.
The Cohens and Patterson each earn $500 for their victory, per Hunt rules.
The clue book price has been reduced to $19.62, and includes a PDF file which is delivered within 12 hours, while the hardcopy of the book is shipped via US mail.
Details of all previous winners and solutions are found at the organizer’s website, thegreatustreasurehunt.com and YouTube channel
David Keith Steele
The Great U.S. Treasure Hunt LLC
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