By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Melissa Pinkney, a Spanish teacher at Thomas More Prep-Marian, ran the annual Sunrise Rotary Grocery Grab on Thursday night at Dillons.

Her father, Mark Bieker, was the winner, but he let Melissa run for both he and his wife and Melissa’s family.

The run is five minutes long. It includes one minute in the meat department with a limit of two items each in that department and five items each in the other departments. Cosmetics and pharmaceuticals were excluded.

Pickney was able to bag a whopping $1,392.60 in groceries. Among her haul were two turkeys for the holidays, a ham, crab legs, prime rib, lobster tails, olive oil, boxes of coffee and plenty of corn dogs for the kids.

Pickney said she scoped out the store before her run. She was looking for items in bulk that her family could store or freeze. Although she had a plan, she found herself picking up some items on impulse. She also intended to hit the cereal aisle and missed that entirely.

“I am smiling and happy now, but I was nervous before,” she said.

Melissa and her husband, Jeff, live in Hays and have three children.

Once the grocery bill was paid, Sunrise Rotary earned about $1,000 on the fundraiser. The money will go toward a new restroom project Sunrise Rotary is working in cooperation with the City of Hays at Ekey Park.

“Our small club, just 18 members, works hard to raise funds for the park and our global mission of eradicating polio from the face of the Earth,” Larry Dreiling, club president, said.

Mandy Scott, Dillons operations assistant manager, said “We take pride in our community and participating in community events like this. We are more than happy to be a part of anything the community wants us to do.”