Reunion Scavenger Hunt focuses on the doors of Grinnell College
April 2, 2025 — There are classrooms, buildings, offices, and other campus spaces that more than a few alumni have never stepped foot in. From the Marcus Family Global Kitchen inside HSSC (Humanities and Social Studies Center), to the dance studio in the Bear Recreation and Athletic Center, to the new Renfrow Hall honoring Edith Renfrow Smith ’37, the Grinnell College campus has dozens of places to explore that weren’t around in the decades before.
A new Reunion 2025 activity, the Doornation Scavenger Hunt, offers a fun way for Reunion-goers to re-discover campus.
Sponsored by the 35th reunion cluster (classes of 1989-1991) and open to everyone, “It’s a typical treasure hunt but it gets people moving around the campus and into different buildings,” says lead organizer Geoff Hoops ’89, who along with Tom Worth ’89, Austin Simmons ’90, and George A. Drake Professor of Religious Studies Henry Rietz ’89 came up with the idea during their Reunion planning process.
Geoff Hoops ’89 stands in front of his own office door at Butler University, where he’s a professor and chair of the chemistry and biochemistry department.
How it works is pretty simple: When registering for Reunion, anyone can also sign up to ‘adopt’ a door for a $20 donation to the Pioneer Fund. Once Reunion attendees arrive in Grinnell, a campus map highlighting locations to find doors can be picked up at the Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center (JRC) Help Desk. Armed with your map, the task is to find the door you’ve been assigned.
“You have to wander the campus and go to all potential buildings until you find your door,” explains Hoops. “We want people to wander into many different spaces to get this physical connection to campus.” Doors will be marked with the sponsor’s name, along with an explanation of what the room behind the door is used for.
For the competitive types, prizes will be given to the first handful of folks who find their door. Otherwise, people can stroll around buildings throughout Reunion weekend – May 29-June 1 – to find their door. While not every building and door on campus will be available for the scavenger hunt, many are, and Athletics staff is especially looking forward to chatting with Doornation Scavenger Hunters who are exploring the Bear, Hoops says.
The Hoops are multi-generation Grinnellians, and Jenny Hoops ’17 is probably the family member most familiar with the current campus layout. Her dad and mom are Geoff, who’s a professor and chair of the chemistry and biochemistry department at Butler University, and Joanna (Gibbs) Hoops ’91, a longtime preschool teacher. The couple met at Grinnell. Geoff’s parents, Stephen Hoops ’62 and Shirley (Neuhaus) Hoops ’64, also met on campus and are now retired.
Doornation organizers felt alums would enjoy both revisiting buildings they had classes in and also exploring newer buildings constructed after they graduated.
“It’s a relatively easy cross-generational activity, and we think it will be community-building,” Geoff Hoops says. “Families can do this together.”
—by Anne Stein ’84
For your information:
Reunion 2025 registration is ongoing. To register and learn more about Reunion activities, which classmates are signed up, and to enter the Doornation Scavenger Hunt, go to Reunion 2025.
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