LAKE GENEVA — Five local grade-school students made up the top three guesses in the annual Geneva Lake freeze-over contest.
The Geneva Lake Environmental Agency and ClearWater Outdoors Sports sponsor a contest opened to all Geneva Lake area grade school students to guess the day Geneva Lake would completely freeze over.
The first-place winner was Elyse Hartwig, sixth grade at Reek School, who chose the actual ice-on date of January 24.
Jacki Rambatt, seventh grade at Fontana, and Stone Sommerfeld first grade at Brookwood Elementary, tied for second place, choosing Jan. 23 .
Third place went to Haven Lutzer, first grade, and Eva VanDusen, third grade from Brookwood Elementary, who chose Jan. 25.
Ties are typically broken by the postmark date, but we received three entry forms on the same date.
Although there was some uncertainty as to whether Geneva Lake was going to freeze completely over this year, after freezing twice earlier only to have the ice go out before three days, Geneva Lake froze completely over and stayed frozen on January 24, 2022.
This is the second year in a row that Geneva has frozen over.
Prizes are awarded to students who picked the date or closest date to ice-on. There were five winners with a tie for second place and third place this year.
The first-place winner received a $50 gift certificate, second place winners received a $20 gift certificate, and the third-place winners received a $10 gift certificate, all from ClearWater Outdoors.
In addition, all winners receive their very own copy of the “My Lakeshore Field Journal” produced by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
The Journal offers activities, pictures, and information about all the neat things that can be found at Wisconsin’s lakeshore. It also allows them to record their personal keepsake lakeshore field journal.
The GLEA has sponsored this ice-on contest for over 15 years and expects to do so again in 2023.