Monday, April 27, 2009

An Abstract Eye on Leonardtown

Leonardtown Geocache to Premiere April 29

To increase public awareness of Leonardtown’s participation in the Maryland Municipal Leagues’ Geocache Trail, St. Mary’s County Government Channel 95 will broadcast a four and a half minute video entitled “Leonardtown Geocache” beginning Wednesday, April 29 at 9:00 a.m. It will be scheduled periodically on Ch. 95 each week; check the county’s website for the schedule at www.stmarysmd.com or call the Public Information Office at 301-475-4200, x1340.

“Geocaching” is a game of hide and seek played by participants all over the world. A geocacher hides a small box of trinkets, posts its GPS coordinates online, and then other geocachers search for it with the use their own GPS units. The program explains geocaching and how to participate in the search. It features comments from Leonardtown’s Mayor J. Harry Norris, and from local geocachers.

The Maryland Municipal League (MML) is an association of cities and towns in Maryland that works to support the interests of municipal government. To attract visitors to its various municipalities, the MML is sponsoring a series of geocaches all over the state, and one of those caches is hidden somewhere in Leonardtown. The Maryland Municipal League (MML) Geocache Trail, Celebrating Maryland’s Cities and Towns, was launched in January. A trackable, highly coveted geo coin will be given to the first 500 geocachers who locate a minimum of 22 city/town caches throughout the state.

The trail is comprised of 78 participating cities & towns with a total of 79 cache hides. The caches are located in 11regions throughout the state.

To be eligible for the coin, geocachers pick up a passport at participating visitor centers (the Welcome Center in Charlotte Hall has a supply), use the stamp in each cache on their passports and write in the cache code word. After at least two municipal caches in each of the 11 districts are discovered, geocachers may return to any one of the participating county visitor centers and have their passports validated to receive a collectable coin. Passports may continue to be used even after all coins have been claimed as a way for geocachers to keep track of their discoveries.

Many geocachers are discovering Leonardtown via the program. “This popular new game is drawing visitors from all over,” said Carolyn Laray, Tourism Manager, St. Mary’s County Government. “Many are discovering our community for the first time.”

For more information on the Maryland Municipal League Geocache trail, visit www.mdmunicipal.org/programs/geocache.cfm. For more information on St. Mary’s County Tourism, contact Carolyn Laray at 301-475-4200, x 1404 or log on to the website at tour.co.saint-marys.md.us