Korando: Is the treasure hunt sunk?: Organizers say they're considering discontinuing the event.

Byline: Wendy Victora

Jun. 5--After a year in which controversies surrounded the annual Billy Bowlegs Pirate Festival treasure hunts, organizers say the process will be changed by next year.

They are even considering discontinuing the hunt.

"It will be done differently next year," said Ted Corcoran, president of the Greater Fort Walton Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, which sponsors the hunt. "It's totally for fun. Totally, totally for fun.

"Some people are taking it really serious. Some people are very competitive about it and when they don't get (the prize), they get mad."

This year, the senior treasure was turned in last Friday by a pair of Okaloosa County School District employees who had actually found the coin May 28.

Corcoran said the winners did not call the chamber or notify them in any way that the coin had been found until they walked in Friday morning.

"We were on standby, we had the camera. We were just waiting to find out," he said.

But during that gap of several days, more clues were released and people continued searching.

Some were quite angry that they had spent that time looking for treasure that was no longer up for grabs.

Since the coin was discovered in front of the Okaloosa County School District headquarters, there were also those who implied the two workers had inside information.

"There's no conspiracy," said Tom Rice, owner of Magnolia Grill restaurant. He hid the coins this year and wrote the clues. "Good Lord of mercy.

"There's enough Richard Nixon stuff going on in people's mind to sink a ship."

One of the two people who found the coin was the daughter of Okaloosa County Superintendent of Schools Alexis Tibbetts' secretary.

The 18-year-old victor told the Daily News she decided to look near the school district offices after reading the May 27 clue about a Viking queen. She found the coin the next day.

Tibbetts is a former Bowlegs queen and was the principal of Fort Walton Beach High School, whose mascot is the Vikings.

She said that even when she was the Bowlegs queen, she had no knowledge of the coins' hiding places.

"I don't know anything about it," Tibbetts said. "Never have. Even the Krewe of Bowlegs don't know anything about it."

The two are completely separate, she said.

"I'm a person with a lot of integrity," she said. "It's important to me that people don't think I would ever know anything about it or tell anyone if I did."

The Chamber of Commerce organizes the treasure hunts, with the help of a local person like Rice.

The clues are published every other day and released through several media outlets, including the Northwest Florida Daily News.

Even the release of clues has become complicated.

Kayla Lynn-Clawson, the 15-year-old Shalimar girl who claimed this year's junior prize, was among those lined up at the back dock of the Daily News early Saturday morning.

Her parents got a paper soon after it came off the press at about 1 a.m., read the clue and raced her over to Camp Walton Schoolhouse near the Indian Temple Mound Museum.

There were others who did the same thing, but Kayla was the first to find the coin taped to a wooden beam under the schoolhouse.

She claimed her prize Saturday afternoon. The announcement was made Monday that the junior treasure had been found, after another clue had been released early Monday morning.

Corcoran said chamber staff had been busy at Saturday's events and did not get a chance to issue the release until Monday morning.

The treasure hunt has been a part of the annual festival for at least 40 years.

Originally, a wooden key was buried in a box on the beach and discovered by people who used metal rods to probe the soft sand.

That was stopped in 1988 after it was determined that too much damage was being done to the dunes.

In more recent years, a junior coin and senior coin have been hidden in downtown Fort Walton Beach with a series of clues leading searchers ever closer to the pirate's booty.

The value of the prize has also climbed. In 1988, the prize was a $1,000 savings bond. This year's senior treasure included roundtrip tickets to anywhere in the world and was valued at about $2,500.

The junior prize was worth about $750.

Daily News Staff Writer Wendy

Victora can be reached at 863-1111, Ext. 478.

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Is the treasure hunt sunk?: Organizers say they're considering discontinuing the event.