Originally published in the May 1984 C&E.
The first annual Easter Egg Hunt at Honor Roll Ranch was a grand success.
Held on Saturday, April 14, the same day the Friends of the Duck Pond were terrorizing the poor ducks at the OU duck pond, the egg hunt at the home of the famed Q. R. Zedd attracted 22 members of the South Canadian Amateur Radio Society.
The duck pond gala featured a great many weirdos walking around in long medieval dresses and baggy pants. The ducks were nowhere in sight, having flown to Ardmore, our newest All-American city, to avoid the clash of cardboard swords on tinfoil armor plate. A good time was had by all, nevertheless, and as a spokesperson for the duck pond friends stated, ..1,70 are going to go ahead and keep improving the duck pond habitat, and if the ducks are to stupid they go elsewhere to live, tough.”
The duck pond medieval fair was nothing, however, compared with the Easter egg hunt at the ranch of Zedd, this planet’s greatest DXer of all times and holder of the only 1×1 callsign, A5A.
Scattered about the 800-plus acres of Honor Roll were a large number of gaily colored tents, housing emergency operating stations for the faithful who had to have an emergency dose of rf while searching for the Easter goodies. Each emergency station was equipped with a Kenwood or Yaesu exciter, an Alpha linear, high-speed keyer, computer-assisted automatic logging terminal and popup TH7DXX on a sixty-foot crankup tower. Links to other emergency positions were provided on 146, 220 and 440 MHz, and for special visitors like N5MS and K5JB, packet radio facilities were provided.
The day began early, before the wind got up, with Zedd himself greeting guests at the ranch house. Zedd wore faded Levi’s, a green flannel shirt, pink vest, red boots with silver concho spurs (the rowels painted metalflake yellow), a fuzzy roan Stetson with his Worked All Stations award and terminal DXCC button pinned on the front, and numerous strands of gold chain and medallions from various countries of the world around his neck. Ever the good host, Zedd led SCARS guests into the linear room, where a continental breakfast was laid out. He had rolls and coffee, tea, crumpets, orange juice and doughnuts for all, with Jack Daniels on the side for those who cared to imbibe, and Harvey Wallbangers for the fainthearted.
Tondelayo Schwartz, Zedd’s blonde, nubile, 20-year-old QSL secretary and constant companion, was on hand to dazzle the locals with her repartee. Tondelayo honored the occasion by showing up in a fuschia hotpants outfit with pink, five-inch spikes and a darling pendant gold watch that monitored the 20-meter band for DX while marking the hour with a brief electronic rendition of “Waymon, Billy and the Boys.”
Needless to say, the local studs were wowed.
After breakfast and a few words Easter egg hunt got under way.
Scattered around the ranch were some 24 plastic eggs. Cunningly hidden by Tondelayo, each egg contained a slip of paper which entitled the finder to a small token of the find: a piece of radio equipment.
Well, the boys and girls rushed into the thin sunlight of midmorning and began to hunt about 10:30. A wonderful, time was had by all. Privacy forbids reporting who won what, but we can say that the prizes included some of Zedd’s own discarded equipment, including a couple of Alpha 77s, a Signal One, 300 feet of Rohn tower, and two mainframe computers.
Your reporter is allowed to state that he is very much enjoying his own prize, given as a result of his finding a purple egg in the weedpatch behind the barn. The KWM380 works great, Q. R., and thanks very, very much!
Zedd announced later that he will make the hunt an annual event, in memory of AF5X, who left Norman recently to go off and hunt Easter eggs of his own in Utah. AF5X, parenthetically, left his wonderful tower to WD5GTC when he left, and we can only hope that Gene properly understands the signficance of this high honor. AF5X had gotten that tower from Zedd himself, who once used it to support his aircraft warning lights atop a (now dismantled) 750-footer on Honor Roll.
It was just the first of several significant social events scheduled in the weeks ahead at Honor Roll. Tondelayo confided during a munchie break that Zedd is all agog over the upcoming visit of his momma, Constance Wilhemina Zedd, who is slated to motor in from Mena on her Kawasaki 1000 for the OU graduation exercises in May.
“Momma’s sister’s boy, High Speed, is graduating,” Tondelayo informed us.
“We didn’t know that the Great One had any close kin other than Momma,” we replied.
“Oh, my ye-yus!” the darling girl beamed. “High Speed is graduating at the top of his class in EE, with a double major in French Pastry. He’s a W6, dontcha know. He’s a wonderful young man, you’ll just love him.”
We would have enquired further, but it was time to lug the radio home and turn a few neighborhood TV sets green. The matter will be pursued.