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Church's Egg Drop a mix of chaos, fun
By Jeremy Henderson | AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Story last updated at 4/11/2009 - 2:10 am

Despite the licenses, permits, and appropriate precautions, the fun faded for some at a free community Easter egg hunt Friday afternoon at Lowrey Field as turnout dwarfed the organizers' expectations.

The event was the second annual Egg Drop held by Experience Life Church, a rapidly growing congregation that meets for contemporary-style worship at the Sportsplex skating rink at 7116 82nd St.

"Last year we dropped 5,000 eggs, but it wasn't enough for the crowds that came," pastor Chris Galanos said in March. "This year, we're dropping 50,000 eggs."

If Friday's turnout - estimates ran as high as 15,000 people - is any indication of things to come, Galanos and Co. will need 10 times that many eggs for 2010.

Thousands of children of all ages toting Easter baskets swarmed the field to grab hopefully at least one of the 40,000 plastic eggs scattered from end zone to end zone, plus the 10,000 more dropped from a hovering helicopter moments before.

As their children merged into a sea of identical ponytails and buzz cuts, many parents disobeyed instructions to stay on the sidelines and began to hunt - not for eggs, but for their kids.

Things were especially chaotic on the side of the field cordoned off for preschoolers. Mothers squinted in the sun and shouted their childrens' names; volunteers in orange "Egg Drop

2009" T-shirts manned cell phones and reported descriptions - age, hair color - back and forth to one another, trying to keep things calm.

Radio traffic monitored in The Avalanche-Journal newsroom among Lubbock police officers helping at the event reflected a degree of confusion, as officers worked to reunite children and parents.

A few dozen out of the thousands of kids had to be reunited with parents, but all were, Galanos said.

Organizers had to reunite parents and children at last year's event, he said. They had a system to get families back together, but they had a lot more people this year.

"One of the problems was some older kids went into the preschool area and parents also went on the field ... which made it harder for the parents who followed the rules to see their kids," Galanos said.

He said they would look for a way to further separate the younger and older kids.

Many in attendance learned of the event from a mailer the church sent to households across Lubbock. Maria Gutierrez was one of them.

"It was fun, but I was going crazy trying to find him," Gutierrez said of her 4-year-old son, Sebastian, who despite the chaos came away happy with a bucket full of eggs filled with toys and candy. "I had tears in my eyes. There are a lot of crazy people right now. It was good, but it'd be kind of hard to say I'd come back."

Tarhonda White felt the exact opposite.

"I thought it was real neat," White said. The mother of two girls, 8 and 7, came for the Egg Drop all the way from Brownfield. "I thought it was great. I ain't never seen nothing like this in my life. That helicopter was real neat."