[July 25, 2011] Couples dash through downtown in quest for diamond ring Tweet Jul 24, 2011 (The Gazette - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Three years ago, Spc. Matthew McHugh didn't have time to drop on one knee and offer an engagement ring to his soon-to-be-wife. So on Saturday, he took her hand and ran. Clutching their phones, McHugh and his wife, Danya, sped across downtown Colorado Springs tracking down clues in a high-tech scavenger hunt that awarded a 1.03 karat, $10,000 diamond engagement ring to the winners. The rules of the Johannes-Hunter Jewelers Diamond Dash were simple: Figure out clues sent via text message to the couples' cell phones and text back the answers. The couple that answered the most clues correctly in two hours won. While most couples had yet to walk down the aisle, the McHughs had already made the trip. That didn't mean they couldn't use the bling. The two met on Match.com shortly before Matthew McHugh was slated to deploy overseas with Fort Carson's 4th Brigade Combat Team. They married two weeks before he left and spent the first year apart. "We need a ring," said Danya McHugh, laughing. "How cool would that be?" Some of the 150 clues were easy: Go to Phantom Canyon Brewing Company and name the hotel you see when looking to the mountains, one clue read. Others asked couples to go to a sculpture and name the artist who made it. To keep couples honest, GPS technology used by the company overseeing the event, Scvngr, tracked everyone's phones to make sure they weren't going too fast -- as would be the case if they hopped in a car or on a bicycle. In other words, that meant "a lot of running and sweating," Danya McHugh said. "I'm not much of a runner, but I think we did well," she added, awaiting the results. True to form for the event, organizers called the winning couple's cell phone to announce their prize. They dialed up Jessica Thompson and her fiance Brandon Rupp, a Greco-Roman wrestler at the Olympic Training Center. "I'm not training for the Olympics, so I was so outpaced," she said. It's not like Rupp had much time to prepare. She politely informed him Friday that they'd be competing for the ring. He obliged -- but couldn't get out of wrestling practice beforehand. "I'm tired," said Rupp, holding his smiling fiance. "We did just enough." The other contestants finishing in the top five received other prizes, such as tuxedo rentals or a pearl necklace. And though they didn't win, Matthew and Danya McHugh left with a smile of their own. The rings they wore to the event meant a little more than the main prize -- though he hasn't dropped the thought of giving her another ring. "I'll go back to the bat cave and figure it out," Matthew McHugh said. -- Call the writer at 476-1654. To see more of The Gazette, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.gazette.com. Copyright (c) 2011, The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]