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EL GAMBRISINO Gem Crafters & Explorer's Club Bulletin, P.O. BOX 3091, Las Cruces, NM 88003 Mar. 2014 - Volume 56– Issue 3 Affiliated with: American Federation of Mineralogical Societies www.amfed.org Member of: Rocky Mountain Federation of Mineralogical Societies www.rmfms.org Member of: Blue Ribbon Coalition www.sharetrails.org 2014 OFFICERS & Volunteers: President Dave Smith 521-3103 [email protected] Vice President Sheri Gaines 526-7176 [email protected] Treasurer Pat Grace 202-2862 [email protected] Secretary - Bill Pickert 532-9351 [email protected] Historian - Don Saathoff 382-3464 [email protected] Programs Eric Fuller 524-0204 [email protected] Field Trip Director- Eric Fuller 524-0204 [email protected] Editor- Maxine Wyman 649-4900 [email protected] We meet on the third Friday of the month at Gardiner Hall, Room 118, NMSU campus, Las Cruces, NM at 6:30 pm for social and 7 pm for the meeting. There are no meetings in July and December. Dues are $10 per adult per year. They are due Jan.1st of each year. A membership form will be emailed or mailed to you in December to be filled out and returned with your check to the treasurer. There are no regular committees or board meetings nor do we sponsor a show. Our purpose shall be to gather knowledge and provide educational benefits to members on geological, archaeological, lapidary, and mineralogical topics of interest, to include assistance to members in all lapidary problems, the study and identification of minerals and gem stones in the rough, the field study of geological formations which produce minerals and gem stones, the collection of minerals and gemstones, and the exploration of any geological or archaeological topic or area which may be of interest to the membership. NOTE: All articles and photographs are by the Editor Maxine Wyman unless otherwise noted. Any address or email changes must be sent to me at: [email protected] or 4680 St. Michaels, Las Cruces, NM 88011. Permission to reprint is granted if acknowledgement is given. We reserve the right to edit all material submitted for publication Info for the Newsletter: If you have information, articles, pictures or a website related to gem crafting, rock collecting or exploring and would like to share please give me a call at 649-4900 or email me at [email protected] If you have a good idea or story to tell I will be more than happy to help you write it up. Also if you have minerals, outdoor or camping equipment, etc. that you would like to sell please let me know for our FREE "Classifieds." Maxine Wyman, Editor

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Page 1: El Gambrisino 2014-03

EL GAMBRISINO Gem Crafters & Explorer's Club Bulletin,

P.O. BOX 3091, Las Cruces, NM 88003 Mar. 2014 - Volume 56– Issue 3

Affiliated with: American Federation of Mineralo gical Societies www.amfed.org Member of: Rocky Mountain Federation of Min eralogical Societies www.rmfms.org Member of: Blue Ribbon Coalition www.sharetrails.org

2014 OFFICERS & Volunteers:

President – Dave Smith 521-3103 [email protected] Vice President – Sheri Gaines 526-7176 [email protected] Treasurer – Pat Grace 202-2862 [email protected] Secretary - Bill Pickert 532-9351 [email protected] Historian - Don Saathoff 382-3464 [email protected] Programs Eric Fuller 524-0204 [email protected] Field Trip Director- Eric Fuller 524-0204 [email protected] Editor- Maxine Wyman 649-4900 [email protected]

We meet on the third Friday of the month at Gardiner Hall, Room 118, NMSU campus, Las Cruces, NM at 6:30 pm for social and 7 pm for the meeting. There are no meetings in July and December. Dues are $10 per adult per year. They are due Jan.1st of each year. A membership form will be emailed or mailed to you in December to be filled out and returned with your check to the treasurer. There are no regular committees or board meetings nor do we sponsor a show. Our purpose shall be to gather knowledge and provide educational benefits to members on geological, archaeological, lapidary, and mineralogical topics of interest, to include assistance to members in all lapidary problems, the study and identification of minerals and gem stones in the rough, the field study of geological formations which produce minerals and gem stones, the collection of minerals and gemstones, and the exploration of any geological or archaeological topic or area which may be of interest to the membership. NOTE: All articles and photographs are by the Editor Maxine Wyman unless otherwise noted. Any address or email changes must be sent to me at: [email protected] or 4680 St. Michaels, Las Cruces, NM 88011. Permission to reprint is granted if acknowledgement is given. We reserve the right to edit all material submitted for publication Info for the Newsletter: If you have information, articles, pictures or a we bsite related to gem crafting, rock collecting or exploring and would like to share please give me a call at 649-4900 or email me at [email protected] If you have a good idea or story to tell I will be more th an happy to help you write it up. Also if you have minerals, outdoor or camping equipment, etc. that you would like to s ell please let me know for our FREE "Classifieds ." Maxine Wyman, Editor

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Meeting Minutes – February 21, 2014 Submitted by Secretary Bill Pickert Speaker : Mike Gains spoke about his love for and collections of Agates with inclusions. There were many pictures of beautiful agates. Treasurer's Report: $305.51 in the treasury. New Business: Rocky Mountain Federation Insurance Is due. Mineral Meeting: Wednesday, February 26, 2014 gates open at 6:30pm. The topic of discussion is Review Field Techniques. If you need directions, contact Don Saathoff. Field Trip: None Announcement: Mike Gaines will be selling minerals and lapidary material SATURDAY MARCH 1st from 8 AM to 3 PM Petition forms were handed out to prevent turning 600,000 acres of Dona Ana County into a national monument. Please return the signed forms at the next meeting. Farm and Ranch Museum has a rock show this weekend. Guests : Ray Demark, Joan & John McMullen.

!

Program Notes Feb. 21, 2014

Mike Gaines

As you know Mike is a member of our club and has delighted us with very interesting programs before. This was another good program about one of his favorite topics – Agates. It was titled “Agate Inclusions”, a power point program with many slides of

beautiful agates mainly from his personal collection. They included Sagenite, Stibnite, Rutile, Dendrites, Tube, Plume, Moss, Flame and many others Many of these were from Oregon where he resided and hunted for lapidary material for many years. A number of these sites are no longer open to collecting which has made many of the agates very rare and hard to come by. They are available only from old collections now. Unfortunately due to my computer problems I didn’t have time to get any pictures from Mike for this short synopsis. so if you missed the meeting you are out of luck. Thank you Mike for another interesting and informative program.

Reminders and Gen. Info: The next meeting will be as usual on the third Friday of the month which is March 21st in room 118 of Gardiner Hall on the NMSU campus. We meet at 6:30 PM for socializing and 7 PM for the meeting.

This is another reminder for those of you who haven’t paid your dues yet to shake loose of that change and pay up. I’ve added the membership form again this month for those who have yet to renew. If not paid up by the March meeting this will be your last Bulletin. If you can’t

make the next meeting please just drop the form in the mail along with your check. The speaker at our March 21st meeting will discuss a bit of wilderness first aid. The topics will be about identifying and handling situations from dehydration, stroke through heart attacks. We have been extremely fortunate in that we have never had a sever accident on any outings with the club. The two recent heat and dehydration related incidents, while not serious, made us very aware that we need to be more prepared. It should be noted that in the hiking clubs outings at least two deaths have occurred in the past years. Day trip and Campout : We will travel to Orogrande on Friday the 29th of March thru Sunday the 31st. Day trippers may come and go any time. More information will follow. Weather may be an issue.

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FOSTER CANYON FIELD TRIP REPORT 2/22/2014

It was another typical New Mexico wintery morning, cool but sunny, when we left at 8 AM. There were six vehicles holding twelve of us brave souls and three dogs. It was an uneventful drive up to the Fred Huff Road which had deteriorated quite a bit since I last traveled it. The road into the north end of the canyon wasn’t too bad but we did have to travel an arroyo due to a washout in the road. If it wasn’t for the big rocks we had to maneuver around it would have been a snap.. By the time of our first stop it had warmed up quite a bit. We did a short walkabout at the yellow/green lichen covered rocks. These are interesting in that they are big and have several shelter type caves in them. Our next stop was back down the road to an off-shoot canyon that leads to the geode beds. This involves about a mile and half walk, a lot of which is uphill, to get there so several of us opted to drive on a ways and look for petrified wood and whatever. Other than Jim finding a really neat piece of wood (not palm which we usually find) we had very little luck. We finally got tired of that and headed back in the direction of the other vehicles where we were surprised to find everyone back at the cars already. It seems that one of the group had passed out shortly after arriving at their destination and so they had brought her back. The symptoms were pretty classic dehydration. We were fortunate that Ken Lilje was on the hike to assist. Ken had been a Ski Patrol member for many years and has training and firsthand experience with emergency first aid. The Duermyers and the Pickerts left us at this time and headed home. There were some geodes found in the short time they were there. After a long confab the rest of us decided to head for the old so called Marble Quarry which was just a little further up the Fred Huff Road. It seems that some of the group had never been there before. We stopped at what is left of the huge rocks at the corner of the Fred Huff and the road to the old Quarry. Most of the rocks have been blasted and removed for landscaping but there are a few left. From there we drove down another “good” 4X4 road to the old quarry. After a lot of exploring, picture taking and not to forget picking up samples of the calcite (not marble) we had another confab and decided to keep going down the road to Faulkner Canyon and the Billy the Kid hideout. I had been there several times and had decided I was not going to climb the steep path to the place where the Kid had incised his initials (which by the way are almost impossible to make out). Well needless to say

after arriving I found myself walking up the path to only find out that you still can’t make out any initials or names.

The Motley Crew

Large Quarry Rocks at the corner of Fred Huff and t he

road to the Marble Quarry.

Eric going thru an old file cabinet found dumped am ong

the rocks.

Calcite at the “Marble Mine”

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Kathy Fuller checking out one of the Trench’s

Ruby “The Wonder Dog” was busy looking for dog

treasure. Now if she could be trained to look for rocks......

Sorry but no photos of the hideout site. Anyway we continued down Faulkner Canyon to NM26 and headed home. It was a gorgeous day, beautiful country, some nice geodes and wood were found and great time was had. Eric wrote : Seven of the group went to the bowling alley for supper and to support the “ACTion Program for Animals (APA)” a group dedicated to zero kill, spaying, neutering and micro chipping of pets. APA was having a raffle and a karaoke contest to raise money for their program. Toby and Connie Kopsa are involved with APA and Toby would participate in the contest so we purchased raffle tickets, cheered loudly, ate and imbibed. Alan Gadberry observed that we probably purchased $200 in raffle tickets, food and drinks so Toby could win $50. Oh what the heck it was fun and for a good cause. One last reminder : Never forget to drink plenty of water. Dehydration is dangerous and can lead to death. This time we were fortunate that there was plenty of help available.

MISSILE DOGS By Eric Fuller

First we had the “Bat Bombers” and now we have the “Missile Dogs” for our NM history story. White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) had a problem. The Army’s proving ground for developing rockets covered five counties in south central New Mexico. Anywhere in WSMR’s 3,200 square miles of area a missile test might come to end with success or failure. Recovering the missile parts for analysis was a necessary part of most missions. Upon impact the rocket parts often buried themselves in the drifting sands.

Into the 1960s telemetry was not up to the task of reliably locating all of the impact areas. Teams of personal would look for the impact area and the missile parts. This was a slow labor intensive process that might not be totally successful.

In 1961 the “Range Instrumentation and Development Division” started using dogs to find the area and the parts. The missile parts would be sprayed with squalene, which is shark liver oil. It would be viable for a year and dogs can smell it from hundreds of feet away. After all we can smell a stew cooking, but a dog can smell each ingredient.

Radar would point to the area of impact and the dogs did the rest. The dogs had a 96% recovery rate. They worked year around in the winter and the grueling heat of the WSMR desert summer sun. To be able to work in the summer the dogs owners John and Cynthia Guzevich, (Jon-Cyn Kennels of Las Cruces), made special terrycloth jackets with ice cube holding pockets.

The dogs were so successful that other scientific and military installations used their services. They recovered several items for the Atomic Energy Commission near Albuquerque, NM and Tonopah, Nevada.

In 1965 telemetry had finally come of age and the dog program was discontinued. Over the five years of the dog program eight dogs had been employed. Dingo, a Weimaraner and Count, a German Shorthair were the most famous.

(Cont’d. on page 5)

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Count and Dingo wait beside a tracked-down missile part

for recovery by their trainers, Mr. and Mrs. Guzevi ch. Permission to use the picture granted from White Sands Missile Range Museum. For more information on the Museum go to http://www.wsmr-history.org/

Giant Arrows Sent in by Nancy McDonald-from the Internet .

Giant concrete arrows that point a way across America. Every so often, usually in the vast deserts of the American Southwest, a hiker or a backpacker will run across something puzzling: an enormous concrete arrow, as much as seventy feet in length, just sitting in the middle of scrub-covered nowhere. What are these giant arrows? Some kind of surveying mark? Landing beacons for flying saucers? Earth as turn signals? No, it's the Transcontinental Air Mail Route Expand

A re-creation of a 1920s map showing the route of airmail planes; the dots are intermediate stops along the course. On August 20, 1920, the United States opened its first coast-to-coast airmail delivery route, just 60 years after the Pony Express closed up shop. There were no good aviation charts in those days, so

pilots had to eyeball their way across the country using landmarks. This meant that flying in bad weather was difficult, and night flying was just about impossible. The Postal Service solved the problem with the world’s first ground-based civilian navigation system: a series of lit beacons that would extend from New York to San Francisco. Every ten miles, pilots would pass a bright yellow concrete arrow. Each arrow would be surmounted by a 51-foot steel tower and lit by a million-candlepower rotating beacon. A generator shed at the tail of each arrow powered the beacon. Now mail could get from the Atlantic to the Pacific not in a matter of weeks, but in just 30 hours or so. Even the dumbest of air mail pilots, it seems, could follow a series of bright yellow arrows straight out of a Tex Avery cartoon. By 1924, just a year after Congress funded it, the line of giant concrete markers stretched from Rock Springs, Wyoming to Cleveland, Ohio. The next summer, it reached all the way to New York, and by 1929 it spanned the continent uninterrupted, the envy of postal systems worldwide. Radio and radar are, of course, infinitely less cool than a concrete Yellow Brick Road from sea to shining sea, but I think we all know how this story ends. New advances in communication and navigation technology made the big arrows obsolete, and the Commerce Department decommissioned the beacons in the 1940s. The steel towers were torn down and went to the war effort but the hundreds of arrows remain. Their yellow paint is gone, their concrete cracks a little more with every winter frost, and no one crosses their path much, except for coyotes and tumbleweeds. But they are still out there.

Editor’s Note: Has anyone ever seen one of these arrows. If so let me know and maybe we can do a short follow up.

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MINERAL MEETING FEB. 26, 2014 There were so many pieces brought in for identification and use of the UV lights that we never got around to Don’s agenda. The Microscopes and the UV light got a workout for sure. Don was suffering badly from allergies but put up with us and still helped ID minerals.

Some of the gang checking something out. I came in

with the camera & flash and got chased out.

The box before the UV light

The same box after the UV light

We had an informative but relaxed meeting but then we almost always do. Thanks Don and hope you are feeling better by now.

BRAD’S BENCH TIPS FOR MARCH NO-MAR PLIERS Pliers can often leave nicks and scratches on your work. If this is giving you a problem, first take a close look at the plier jaws. New tools can be a little rough. I typically relieve any sharp edges, sand away any tool marks and give working areas a quick polish. If that doesn't solve the problem, you probably need to cover the jaws. Plastic electrical tape provides a quick fix but can leave messy adhesive on the jaws. Dips don't seem to last very long.

A quick and easy way I've found is to slip a length of 1/8 dia. vinyl tubing over each jaw. It's quick and leaves no sticky residue. Only problem is that it increases the size of the plier jaws a bit. The tubing can be found in a store that sells aquarium supplies.

PATINA RECIPIES In a recent class we did a little work with patinas. I came across a couple web sites for those of you who'd like to explore this area, especially for copper and bronze. The first is The Science Company at http://www.sciencecompany.com/Do-It-Yourself-Patina-Formulas-W12C672.aspx with plenty of formulas for a variety of colors. And there are more formulas at Tim McCreight's Brynmorgen Press web site at http://www.brynmorgen.com/resources.html Small quantities of chemicals for making your own patinas are available from The Science Company at http://www.sciencecompany.com/Patina-Chemicals-C672.aspx If you prefer to buy the patinas already for use, one of the best sources I've come across is Sculpt Nouveau at http://www.sculptnouveau.com/ Don't miss all the instructional pdf's on the site and be sure to take a look at the videos showing how to use their products at http://www.youtube.com/sculptnouveau Get all 101 of Brad's bench tips in "Bench Tips for Jewelry Making" on Amazon

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Rincon Trip: 2/15/2014 By Eric Fuller, Photos by Eric Fuller An impromptu trip to see the Rincon Petroglyphs was set up by Doug Hall. Doug had spent time as a youngster at the town of Rincon staying with his grandparents. Rincon has a large assortment of Petroglyphs including 1,000 year old Mogollon, hundreds of years old Spanish, Apache, early 20th century thru modern graffiti. The winter day started out cool, but quickly warmed up causing some overheating and dehydration. Dr. Brecken had located the GPS coordinates of some mines just north of the main mountain. The mines were not shown on the topo map, but they covered an extensive area. We determined that they were not of much interest to us rockhound so some went to the Lake Valley area to explore. We visited a WW-2 AAF precision bombing target and the Greg Hills. Our last trip to Rincon several years ago we looked for a “life size” petroglyph of a conquistador on a horse on the south side, but could not find it. This time the trip focused on the petroglyph canyon just west of the radio towers. A Spanish Petroglyph at the top of the canyon, facing into it says “Entero Los Inds” which we interpret to say enter the canyon of the Indians (Petroglyph Canyon). Following that instruction we hiked down canyon and near the mouth found a Spanish petroglyph of an arrow pointing left. The arrow has a circle imposed upon its central area. A hash mark is in the very center of the circle. The arrow is the direction to go, the circle represents a mountain or hill in that direction, the hash mark says to stop at the top. Following the instructions we found a prospect in a mineralized vein. Apparently a Spaniard of old was marking the way to his prospect. Did he find a source of great mineral importance? A great amount of prospecting has been done in the area. Other Spanish Petroglyphs exist in the area, some just a few letters and some much more but eroded and not decipherable. The Apache petroglyph in the area seems to represent a farmer. The hundreds of Mogollon Petroglyphs are mostly a mystery.

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Cookes Peak Campout: 2/28 thru 3/5 By Eric Fuller The weather man kept messing with the forecasts each day in the week before the campout. It looked worse daily. We were committed come rain or shine. As it turned out the rain came during the night of Saturday, along with howling winds. No…Ruby didn’t have an accident as the winds blew water thru the gaps of our front door. The Hidden Valley Ranch RV Park is under new management. The last campout there was really great, this time the park was even better. The Rally Rate was $15 per night full hookup and they had 3 RVs set up to rent at $45 per night. On Friday night they have a “Happy Hour” at the club house, all are invited. Approximately 60 people showed up. The new people of the week introduced themselves. They had the privilege of going thru the serving line first. As you might imagine that many people brought in a cornucopia of food. Kathy and I worked on exploring the area on the ATVs. We located one new artillery impact area for the Camp Cody WW-1 training and GPS-d back to two other we had found previously. We GPS-d shell fragments and ½” lead balls from canister rounds (256 balls per canister round). These we placed into the mapping program. The footprints generated would tell us the direction from which the shells were fired. We had high hopes that we could plot the trajectories of each area back to find the location the 3” artillery fired from. To our dismay each area was impacted from a different firing location. No simple solution was to be deciphered here. On Saturday Jerry Cone showed up for a day trip. His goal was the mines on Cooke’s peak. We first took him to a WW-1 trench warfare training location 3 miles from HVR. Trenches still there, were partially filled in from almost 100 years of rain and wind. We than went to nearby mines and determined that micros were not likely to be found there. So on and up thru massacre canyon and Fort Cummings to send Jerry up the mountain of Cookes. With all of our tour up to this point we determined at about 3 miles before the fort that we might not have enough gas to get back to HVR. Jerry went on alone and we turned back. Jerry decided not to explore the Cookes mines by himself and opted for home. We made it back to camp with fuel to spare. I will acquire a spare gas can for the future. That night we had a more typical happy hour at the neighbors RV. Many folks had wanted to make this campout, but weather and other commitments got in the way. We will

plan another trip here soon and hope that all can make it.

The Butterfield Trail in bloody Cookes Canyon

Fuse End from WW-1 3inch shell

Tipx!nf!b!qjbop!gbmmjoh!epxo!b!njof!tibgu!boe!J(mm!tipx!zpv!B.gmbu!njofs/!

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F&RHM ROCK SHOW 2/23/2014 It was early Sunday before we had a chance to get over there and there were already quite a few vehicles in the parking lot. The show was pretty much the same as last year with varied minerals, rocks, equipment and way too much (for my tastes) finished jewelry. We ran into a number of club members looking for bargains and one club member selling. Dodds was set up in the same place as last year, everything labeled and priced so neatly. He has an amazing array of New Mexico rocks and minerals plus some driftwood and other related items most of which he has collected himself. If you missed this show you can see him down at the Farmer’s Market. It’s worth the tripjjj

Dodds Cupit Jr, Kathy Fuller, and Ken Lilje Photo by Dave Smith

Frank Parrish, another local, was set up and selling off his collection of Quartz Crystals and at very reasonable prices. He had some beauties, well they were all that, and of all sizes. Frank said something about “age” and trying to sell off a few things. Hum, I wonder if he is going to sell off his arrowhead collection to.

This vendor had a very nice display of Ammonites

and other fossils. I looked for Benny and Alva Finn, Las Cruceans also, display but they weren’t there this year. I found out later that Benny had just passed away. Benny spent many years mining and buying in Mexico. I used to see Alva every year at their sales booth at the Tucson Show. Benny’s discoveries are legendary as is his reputation for honesty and friendliness. Today as I was writing this, I received my March issue of Rock and Gem and there was his name on the cover. They have an article about him and many of his discoveries. Most of you have probably been to their Shop out S. Main. Fred Hurt and Chris Crowley, locals also, were there with their New Mexico rocks and minerals. I always enjoy their display; never can get by them without buying something and, of course, chatting with them. Actually, the best part of any show is meeting old friends and catching up with what’s going on in my favorite world – which would be rocks of course. Anyway, I went home tired, happy with my purchases but with a bit of a sore throat “from talking so much”. I had a good time again this year and am looking forward to the 3rd annual show.

Remember Gracie Allen? If not then maybe you simply appreciate a good recipe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gracie Allen's Classic Recipe for Roast Beef

1 large Roast of beef 1 small Roast of beef

Take the two roasts and put them in the oven. When the little one burns, the big one is done.

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UP COMING SHOW Date MAR 14-16—ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO: 45th Annual Gem, Mineral and Jewelry Expo; Jay Penn; Expo NM State Fairgrounds; Creative Arts Bldg., 300 San Pedro NE; Fri. 10-6, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 10-5; adults $3 ($1 on Fri.), children (under 13) free; Treasures of the Earth: 40 dealers, gemstones, mineral specimens, jewelry, beads, cabochons, carvings, fossils, meteorites, books, raffles, door prizes, silent auctions, mineral ID, displays; contact Paul Hlava, (505) 265-4178; e-mail: [email protected] ; Web site: www.agmc.info MAR 28-29—ADA, OKLAHOMA: Annual show; Ada Gem, Mineral & Fossil Club; Pontotoc County Agri-Plex; NE corner of St. Hwy. 99/U.S. 377 and St. Hwy. 1/3E intersection; Fri. 8-6, Sat. 9-5; free admission; demonstrations, fluorescent rock and mineral display, lapidary, jewelry, silent auctions, kids' fossil dig and petting zoo; contact Ed Vermillion, PO Box 782, Purcell, OK 73080, (405) 527-6431; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: www.freewebs.com/agmfc/index.htm APR 5-6—CENTRAL POINT, OREGON: Annual show; Roxy Ann Gem & Mineral; Olsrud Arena; Jackson County Fairgrounds; Sat. 9-5:30, Sun. 10-4:30; adults $4, seniors and students $2, children (under 6) free; "Amazing Gems": exhibits, dealers, demonstrations, gold panning, silent auction, children's activities, door prizes; contact Jami Walkins, Crater Rock Museum, 2002 Scenic Ave., Central Point, OR 97502, (541) 664-6081; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: www.craterrock.com APR 10-12--WYOMING, MICHIGAN: Annual show; Indian Mounds Rock & Mineral Club; Rogers Plaza Town Center; 972 28th St. SW; Thu. 9:30-9, Fri. 9:30-9, Sat. 9:30-8; free admission; dealers, minerals, fossils, gems, jewelry, beads, rough, equipment, books, displays, demonstrations, children's table; contact Don Van Dyke, 4296 Oakview, Hudsonville, MI 49426, (616) 669-6932; e-mail: [email protected] ; Web site: www.indianmoundsrockclub.com APR 26-27—LUBBOCK, TEXAS: 56th Annual Show and Sale; Lubbock Gem & Mineral Society; Lubbock Memorial Civic Center; 1501 Mac Davis Ln.; Sat. 10-6, Sun. 10-5; adults $4, seniors $3, students $2, children free; dealers, rocks, gems, minerals, jewelry, rough, slabs, beads, novelties, lapidary and jewelry-making demonstrations, Kids' Corner, Spin to Win, silent auction, member exhibits, visiting exhibits, door prizes, junior and adult grand prizes; contact Walt Beneze, PO Box 6371, Lubbock, TX 79493, (806) 797-5832; e-mail: [email protected] ; Web site: www.lubbockgemandmineral.org MAY 17-18—CHEYENNE, WYOMING: Annual show; Cheyenne Mineral & Gem Society; Archer Complex, Bldg. M; just south of I-80 Exit 370, 6 miles east of Cheyenne; Sat. 9-6, Sun. 10-4; adults $3, children (under 12) free with adult; exhibits, jewelry, fossils, fluorescent minerals, grab bags, dealers, faceting demonstrations, free gold panning, silent auction, large dinosaur models, mineral coloring books; contact Bob King, (307) 632-2702 JUL 11-13—TULSA, OKLAHOMA: Annual show; Tulsa Rock & Mineral Society, American Federation Mineralogical Societies, Rocky Mountain Federation of Mineralogical Societies; Tulsa Fairgrounds, Central Park Hall; 4800 E. 15th St. S; Fri. 9-6, Sat. 9-6, Sun. 10-5; adults $6 (3-day pass $10), Scouts, firemen and police in uniform free, children (under 12) free; “Rocks and Gems of the Indian Territory”: rocks, fossils, minerals, gems; contact Liz Thomas, 13896 S. 293rd E Ave., Coweta, OK 74429, (918) 486-3788; e-mail: [email protected] ; Web site: www.ttownrockhound.org

For further information or shows please check: www.rockngem.com

Who knows, there just might be a good rock show in the area of your travels.

A Thought to Ponder: To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

Some Interesting Web Sites for you to Check Out Please send me any of your favorites that you think others might be interested in and I will pass them along. Maybe next month someone will send something in????? Please