Easter Bunnies incognito
Noe family makes clandestine egg drops for friends, neighbors

Sally Noe boils 10 dozen eggs in her kitchen Friday. Noe and her family make Easter baskets and leave them on people's doorsteps to be found Easter morning. They have been delivering baskets in Gallup since the 1960s. (Photo by John A. Bowersmith/Independent)

By Leslie Wood
Staff Writer

GALLUP — She's not the Easter Bunny, but she does deliver anonymously more than 120 dyed eggs to Gallup residents on the eve of the holiday.

What started as an effort to extend her youngest son's belief in the Easter Bunny expanded into a tradition that has spanned more than 40 years for the Noe family.

Sally Noe said family members, or whoever is around at the time, boil and dye about 10 dozen eggs and distribute them to deserving residents.

Each of the 20 baskets contains an assortment of the dyed eggs and candy, which were prepared in the Noe home. The remaining eggs are then given to members of the Noe's church Church of the Holy Spirit.

"We take them to people we like and to people we don't even know," Noe said. "But we don't cover the entire town with eggs or anything."

The Noes hang the baskets on the mailboxes of each recipient on Saturday night without any tagging that indicates whom the baskets are from.

"We'll do it as a thank you for some people," she said. "... I just think everyone deserves to have an egg during their life."

She said the family often targets neighbors with young children or the elderly when determining who will receive the baskets.

On two occasions, Noe's husband was questioned by Gallup Police officers who were initially suspicious of the deliveries.

"But then they saw all the baskets in the back seat of the car and didn't mind," Noe said.

The entire egg-dying process takes about three hours and the eggs are purchased in bulk beforehand, she said.

— Reporter Leslie Wood can be reached at 863-6811 ext. 22.