Hunting Island park ranger surprises 7-year-old visitor with a gift he’ll always remember
Hunting Island State Park is known to attract collectors of many things including shark teeth, sea shells, and memories.
But 7-year-old Mason Stenger was after something else during his family’s recent camping trip, and he wouldn’t have gotten it if it wasn’t for a determined dad and an act of kindness from a park ranger.
The Stenger family — Mason, his dad Kevin, mom Kelli, and 3-year-old sister Emerson — live in Chapin near Columbia and go camping about once a month.
“I told my wife if we bought a camper we were going to use it,” Kevin laughed. “We actually booked our trip to Hunting Island 13 months ago.”
In early August, that trip finally happened.
Mason was excited to climb the lighthouse and swim at the beach, but before the family’s time there was over he had one thing he needed to do: get a pressed penny for his collection.
Before they even got to the park, Mason had his heart set on a specific design that had a turtle in the middle of it with Hunting Island SC written at the top.
Although he’s young, Mason already has plenty of penny- collecting experience. His grandmother collects them, too, and passed the hobby down him.
“Yeah, he got big into it staying at Grandma’s house,” Kevin said. “Everywhere we go, my mom tells us where the pennies are going to be at and Mason looks forward to getting his pennies.”
Grandma’s secret to finding the pennies is a website that includes locations of where penny pressing machines are located in the United States and internationally. Some of the listed machine locations include descriptions and photos of the available designs, including the ones at Hunting Island.
After almost a week at the campgrounds, the family began packing up their stuff to leave Sunday and went to the nature center to press Mason’s penny.
But disappointment greeted them at the locked door.
The nature center was closed Sundays and Mondays and there was no way to get inside with just hours left in their trip. So they left empty-handed.
But Kevin had an idea.
He’d previously joined a Facebook group where people share photos and videos of their trips to Hunting Island and noticed Carl Berube, a ranger at the park, was pretty active in the group.
“I had sent him a message before we left asking if there was any way to get a penny while we were still down there,” Kevin said. “But he didn’t respond until the next day.”
That response was a promising one, though.
The men exchanged information and soon after a letter addressed to Mason was in the mail.
Days later, Mason — who had no clue what his dad had been up to — opened the letter and smiled wide.
He’d gotten his penny.
It will be one among the 100-200 pennies already framed at the Stengers’ house, but will be a special one for sure, Kevin said.
Berube, who’s originally from Massachusetts and was stationed at U.S. Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort decades ago, has worked at Hunting Island since 2004.
He said he’s gotten a lot of requests in those 16 years, but never one for a penny.
“I thought it was pretty cool a 7-year-old was saving his memories that way,” Berube said. “I knew squishing the penny was something real little, but going to mean something big to somebody.”
