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Racing across campus, Biola junior Ben Kopec skidded to a halt outside the Student Health Center. By finding vice president Chris Grace standing there, he had solved the first portion of a clue to finding the first prize of Biola’s second annual Tweet Hunt. Grace cryptically told Kopec to “search for the prize in the area where graduates will march to their seats in the spring commencement ceremony.” After searching the center flowerbed of Metzger lawn, Kopec won himself a bag of Biola gear.

“Nothing like the Tweet Hunt to start my day off right,” Kopec said enthusiastically. “I look forward to reading the tweet, figuring out the clue and then it’s off to the races.”

The weeklong Twitter-based scavenger hunt, which will end with a grand prize on Founders Day, Feb. 25, keeps students on their toes literally and mentally, as each clue requires knowledge of Biola history or culture. The clue that led Kopec to Grace was tweeted out Monday, Feb. 21, reading: “The #4 download on Biola’s iTunesU is by this man. Find him on campus @ a building related to solving the issue of his lecture.”

Minutes after clues are tweeted via (Biola’s official Twitter account), students can be seen scurrying across campus in hopes of arriving at the next prize location first. Hunting for the clues in trees and bushes, students look for items like iPods, gift cards and Biola merchandise. 

After tweeting the riddle, “This building’s name is the street name where Biola was 1st located. In front a prize can be found, not high but not on the ground,” junior Rob Frampton found a gift card for hanging in the tree outside of Hope residence hall.

The Tweet Hunt will culminate with a grand prize search involving multiple clues and offering the winner a chance to be part of history in helping bury Biola’s time capsule. The capsule has been awaiting burial since Biola’s centennial year in 2008, and is filled with notes and photographs from students and generationally defining objects such as iPods.

Biola’s first time capsule was buried in 1913 under the cornerstone of the original campus at Hope and Sixth streets in Los Angeles. Dug from the earth in the ‘80s, valuable historical documents such as founder Lyman Stewart’s speech from Biola’s groundbreaking and copies of Biola’s journal (the of the first half of the 20th century) were found. 

The grand prize winner of the Tweet Hunt will win an iPod Nano and two paper-craft blue birds symbolic of Twitter — one to keep and one to place in the capsule before assisting in its burial below the Talbot Building Complex plaza on Friday, Feb. 25, at 11 a.m.

Written by Jenna Bartlo, Media Relations Coordinator. Jenna can be reached at (562) 777-4061 or through email at jenna.l.bartlo@biola.edu.