Garrison egg hunt reaches year 49
Event has received worldwide publicity
BY CHRIS BRIDGES
A Homer tradition unlike any other will resume for the 49th consecutive year this Easter Sunday.
Garrison’s annual Easter Egg Hunt will begin at 2 p.m. Sunday with 100,000 individual wrapped candy eggs. In addition, 175 plastic eggs will be used as prize eggs. Those obtaining these eggs can redeem them for live bunnies, stuffed bunnies or Easter baskets, organizer Mack Garrison said this week.
“We do this for the kids in the community and the surrounding community,” Garrison said. “I am seeing as many as three generations attend now.”
Depending on the weather, Garrison said crowds have ranged from 2,000 up to 20,000.
“I’m not a good politician so I can’t estimate the exact number of people,” Garrison said, laughing. “Weather does have a great deal to do with the turnout.”
Organizers do encourage those attending to arrive early for parking reasons. The event is at 323 Hwy. 51 South. The parking at Banks County Elementary School and Banks County Primary School will be open along with spaces at the Banks County Board of Education office and by the old Banks County High School gym.
In the mid-1980s, the Garrison Easter Egg hunt was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest. It was later topped by hunts in Florida as well as some out of the country. In recent years an Easter Egg hunt at Stone Mountain was recognized as being one of the largest.
Garrison said he isn’t necessarily interested in trying to set the record again.
“Records are made to be broken and that’s not why we have this,” he said. “I wasn’t upset when our record was broken.”
The Homer event has created world-wide attention. Garrison recalls having a newspaper article from a Korean newspaper sent to him as well as a front page article in USA Today.
Sickness prevented Garrison from being fully involved with the event last spring but he said he is ready to go this year.
“We’ve never been rained out,” he said. “We’ve had days when it was raining, but it’s always stopped long enough for us to have it. I guess we’ve been blessed that way.”
