At about noon on Sunday, Patrick Ahearn of Colorado Springs, became the latest winner of the Smoky Hill River Festival Medallion Quest.

Ahearn found the round button-shaped Medallion on the east side of 9th Street, east of Thomas Park in north Salina. The Medallion was crafted from resin and made using polymer clay. It was specifically colored and designed to be placed in the center of a sewer “manhole” cover on an access road directly across the street from Thomas Park. The Medallion was designed and created by Meredith Moore of Lawrence.

Ahern, 30, was visiting Salina visiting his in-laws when he decided to go searching for the Medallion. He said he spent four or five hours searching for it.

“We were just looking around the green pump station that said #28 on it, and were looking down at the sewer cover that looked like a bulls-eye, so we thought we might be in the right area,” Ahearn said. “We walked over to another manhole cover and kicked the middle of it, and the middle flipped over. We saw the paper slip attached to it, so we knew it was real.”

Ahern is a production manager for an electronics manufacturing company in Colorado Springs. He and his wife, Sherri, typically come back to see family during the River Festival each year. Sherri is a software developer at Oracle in Colorado Springs.

For locating the Medallion, Ahern and family will receive a prize package of $2,000 in cash, $2,000 in gift certificates to be used specifically for shopping at the River Festival’s Fine Art and Four Rivers Craft Shows or in the Arts and Crafts Demonstration area. Other prizes include four Festival admission buttons, a complimentary on-grounds Festival parking pass, an invitation for four to the Saturday morning Art Patron Breakfast in the formal Rose Garden in Oakdale Park, and assorted Festival T-shirts, Festival entertainer CD’s and other event memorabilia.