Treats and trains
ZELIENOPLE — Candy treats and model trains were the twin attractions of the Zelienople Lions Club 2023 Easter Egg Hunt Saturday morning.
After hundreds of children scrambled for eggs and candy in Zelienople Community Park, they could walk a half-block to the Model Train Club of Zelienople’s model train display at Masonic Lodge, 330 E. Beaver St., which ran from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Elliott Hilton, president of the Zelienople Lions Club, said his members had been planning for this year’s Easter egg hunt for a month. Club members had been in the park beginning at 9:30 a.m. to scatter plastic eggs and candy for the free event for children up to 12 years old.
“We chartered in 1949. Our main focus is to serve the blind and the hearing-impaired. We also work with (Lions) District 14 on hunger, global environmentalism and childhood cancer,” Hilton said.
Lions Club member Katie Schnoppe was helping Karen Malloy, a senior at Seneca Valley High School and one of the 10 volunteers from the school’s Honor Society, get into an Easter Bunny costume before the 11 a.m. start of the egg hunt.
After the bunny head was attached, Malloy said “I volunteered for this. This is so much fun. I’ll walk around and take pictures with the kids.”
Schnoppe said the egg hunt is a tradition of the Lions Club going back at least 30 years.
“It’s always done on the Saturday before Easter,” she said, adding the egg hunt was divided into four age groups in separate sections of the park — 1 to 2, 3 to 4, 5 to 6 and 7 to 12 — so the younger hunters didn’t have to compete with the older children. All ages participated in the egg hunt simultaneously when an air horn sounded the start.
Linda Flora, a Lions Club member for 22 years, was taking donations, selling candy and collecting canned goods for the Southwest Butler Food Cupboard.
“We have thousands of eggs. We do it every year,” Flora said. “Five minutes after the horn goes off, they clear it out.
“It’s a big turnout. It’s well-known in the community that we have it the Saturday before Easter,” she said.
One of those who turned out was Doug Anderson, of Ellwood City, who brought his granddaughters, Allison, 7, and Mackenzie, 5.
Allison said this was her first time at the event, and she was looking forward to it. Asked what her egg-hunt strategy would be, she said, “Go fast.”
Monica Hughes of Zelienople brought her son, Nolan 4, who came equipped with a green crocheted Hulk basket.
“I’m going to get all the Easter eggs and candy,” he said before the start of the event.
After the horn sounded and the park was picked clean of treats, and Daisy Burge, 7, the daughter of Kacey Burge, of Zelienople, was pleased with her haul.
“I got Twizzlers and Snickers. I don’t like Twizzlers, but I’ll keep the Snickers,” Daisey said. She said she might share the Twizzlers with her siblings, who were with the younger egg hunters.
Kacey Burge said she was happy with the sunny, but cold, conditions of the hunt.
“Last year it was awful weather, but we were still out,” she said.
In keeping with the holiday theme, some of the model trains at the Model Train Club of Zelienople’s train display at the Masonic Lodge were loaded with jelly beans and colored Easter eggs.
Club co-founder Matthew Beahm said of the display, which ran from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., “We purposefully have it at this time of year, because we know the kids are going to be next door.
“We did partner somewhat with the Lions Club. We advertised both events on each other’s Facebook pages,” he said.
He said the two-year-old club has 20 members, all model train aficionados.
The club’s 8-foot-wide and 24-foot-long layout had five trains running around a miniature town. Other trains were on view in a static display.
Member Ronny Thompson was showing off his Norfolk Southern fire train which he said was similar to one that was sent to the East Palestine, Ohio, area after the catastrophic train derailment in February.
The train’s water tankers and first-responder equipment is used to teach local fire departments how to deal with train fires and derailments, Thompson said.
The train layout had two interactive features for viewers. One switch activated a water tower nozzle. Another switch set a newsstand operator and customers into motion.
The town in the layout contained a model of Zelienople’s historic Kaufman Tavern, a local landmark for more than 100 years.
Club member Sean McCarthy said the time he spent wiring the layout’s displays for lights and motion will pay off because it makes it easier to disassemble and set up it in the building’s basement, where the club has its meetings, and then reassemble it for the club’s next public showing.
Also on the layout was a metal pre-World War II model train donated to the club by Audrey Lynch, the widow of Pittsburgh artist Calvin Lynch. Lynch’s train was made of sheet metal. During the war, model trains stopped being made. After the war, train sets were mostly made of plastic.
Dale Krysinski, club co-founder, was manning the controls of the layout’s trains. He said the appeal of model trains is simple.
“It’s like going back in time. My dad had a 1962 Lionel train set,” he said, adding he didn’t know how many train sets he had, reckoning it to be eight or 10.
He said the reason the club puts on four public displays of its layout and trains each year was simple.
“I like watching the children’s faces light up. It’s heartwarming,” said Krysinski.
