OK, rock hounds: The Four Corners Gem & Mineral Show is next weekend, so get ready.
Now in its 68th year, the show will once again take over the La Plata County Fairgrounds, July 8 to 10, and will offer all manner of rock-related things to keep you busy: There will be more than 60 vendors, classes, kids’ activities and food trucks.
And if the 68th annual anything isn’t impressive enough, the gem club itself turns 75 this year. Club member and former president Jama Crawford said the difference in anniversaries between the show and club is because the club had to cancel the show a handful of times because of unforeseen events, such as 2002’s Missionary Ridge Fire and the COVID-19 pandemic. She said the club now has about 200 households as members.
If you go
WHAT: 68th annual Four Corners Gem & Mineral Show.
WHEN: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. July 8 and 9, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. July 10.
WHERE: La Plata County Fairgrounds, 2500 Main Ave.
ADMISSION: Adults $3 per day, children younger than 12 free with an adult.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.durangorocks.org.
NOTE: The Four Corners Gem & Mineral Club is seeking volunteers to help during the Gem & Mineral Show. To volunteer and for more information, visit https://bit.ly/3Agj8CQ.
One of the things that stands out about this year’s show is the broad spectrum of vendors who will be there, said Cindy Pugsley, chairwoman of the show.
‘The highlights of the show, of course, are going to be the 60 vendors. And I think the main highlight is the diversity of the vendors that we chose to come,” she said. “We have a member here who has a booth who is only doing cabochons. They spend the year cutting and then cutting out the shape, and then polishing it to a cabochon. And then we have another member who specializes in making leather belts with turquoise and coral set into the belt and then he also makes silver cuffs, mostly out of turquoise and silver. The people we have visiting from all over the country to come here, we have metaphysical crystal people coming, we have a wire-wrapper that is, his pieces, he specializes in gemstone wrapping. And then we have Native American jewelry coming – it really is a diverse, I think that’s truly the highlight is how diverse it’s going to be.”
Pugsley said she and her husband moved to Durango three years ago from suburban Chicago and was happy to find the gem club because of what she brought with her when she moved.
“(My husband’s) grandfather worked for the Forest Service, and he was in charge of Idaho and Montana and Northern Colorado. They would actually climb up a lookout tower, spot any smoke and then report it. But then, as he was doing all this hiking into these lookout towers, he started rock-hounding,” she said. “When he passed, he gave to his son – my husband’s father – about a hundred 5-gallon buckets of rocks that he had collected. And when my husband’s father died, we inherited them, and I said, ‘We need to move these across country.’ And he looked at me like I was crazy, and I said, ‘No, no, no; I really want to do something with these rocks.’”
She said she found people in the Four Corners Gem & Mineral Club who were just as excited as she was about the buckets. They showed her how to use the club, which offers education, jewelry-making classes, a shop of tools members can use and field trips.
When it comes to the secret of the club’s longevity, both Pugsley and Crawford agree it can be attributed to a mix of reasons why people are drawn to it – especially those who are attracted to the geology side and those who find themselves drawn into the artistic aspect of gems and minerals.
“There are a lot of rock clubs in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, so I think that it is the area because there are rocks available, but I also think that it’s people’s love of picking up rocks. I just meet so many people and they’re like, ‘Oh, I want to join, I have a pile of rocks outside my mailbox that I’ve collected,’” Pugsley said. “How many people go on hikes and come home with a pocketful of pretty rocks? ... I think it is the love of rocks – I don’t know what it is about rocks, I think rocks speak to people and it’s just a little trinket they can pick up and whatever. A lot of our membership is geologists, I think that their love of rocks makes them want to share their knowledge. ... This club in particular is very diverse.”
“I think the main reason it has survived so long is, well one thing, there is a human fascination for beautiful stones. It’s very deeply human, humans have self-adorned themselves with stones – anthropologists say preceding human speech. So it’s a deeply human activity to adorn yourself and use stones or shells, something like that. I think it partly just that ties into our human nature,” Crawford said. “I think also artists have always liked to get together – and of course there’s a large component of people in our club that are more geologists and not looking for stones to make jewelry or something, but they have a fascination with our regional geology. So those two groups – the artists and the scientists – converge in that space. And it’s a lovely mix of what happens there.”
As for next weekend: Pugsley said the club is looking for volunteers to help at the show. If this sounds like you, visit durangorocks.org for more information and to sign up.
katie@durangoherald.com
