By TONY GUERRERO
Hays Post
A historic Volga German home is taking on a new purpose this summer as a student-designed escape room.
Jerry Braun, Hays High School's gifted instructor, said the idea for an escape room came from a youth program and will be part of the Ellis County Historical Society's 150th-anniversary ribbon-cutting on Thursday.
The escape room, at the Volga German Haus at 100 W. Seventh St., will be available by reservation only and run throughout the summer, Braun said. Reservations can be made through the Historical Society at 785-628-2624. The cost is $20 to reserve a room for a group of up to six players.
Students in Braun’s special projects and research class designed the experience, which features five paths with varying difficulty levels. Each path follows a different member of the Haberkorn family, a real Volga German family that lived in Ellis County.
"The Haberkorn family moved to Pfiefer, Kansas, from Marienfeld, Russia," one student said. "Our escape room talks about them moving and mainly focuses on the mom."
The goal of each difficulty varies with its storyline, such as locating an old Bible or a wedding dress.
"It's based loosely on letters that they corresponded back and forth to their family in Kansas," Braun said. "The setting is the Volga German Haus, so it's kind of like a home they would have lived in at the time they were here."
Students said the experience takes about one to one and a half hours to complete. The project began in November and involved months of planning, testing and historical research on Volga German life in Ellis County.
"We researched games they played, food they ate and chores they would have done—basic traditions like that," a student said.
The escape room features hidden puzzles that players must connect to progress. Items used in the project came from the Arc Thrift Store, were created by students or are museum artifacts, Braun said.
"For ours, I went to the public library to get access to a newspaper from the time that I could print off a copy and attach a crossword puzzle to the back that is necessary to solve in the escape room," another student said. "In my case, I had to go to an actual source to get something relevant to the time period."
Braun said designing the escape room required significant critical thinking and teamwork. Students had previously created smaller escape rooms in class, but had not produced one for the public.
"We've created them for other classes, but we haven't done them for public consumption before. From what I've seen from our test runs, I really do feel confident that it's going to be good," Braun said.
Braun said puzzles will be rotated and updated throughout the summer to keep the experience fresh. Students who designed the escape room will also operate it, with some saying they have never worked on a project like this before.
"I enjoyed the entire part of it. It never felt like it was a burden to finish. I was excited to try it, and I was excited for other people to try it. It's been really fun overall," a student said.
The historical society is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. Braun said special requests for escape room reservations outside of normal hours can be made by calling.
You can find other Ellis County’s 150th-anniversary events on the historical society’s website and Facebook page.