Sarah Brown
Not all who wander are lost.
Some are just looking for rocks.
More than 3,000 wanderers did just that at the 72nd Sweet Home Gem & Mineral Show, held Saturday and Sunday, March 26-27, inside the Activities Gymnasium at Sweet Home High School.
The event was put on by the Sweet Home Rock and Mineral Society, which has been inviting rockhounds to show off their finds since 1948.
This year’s event, the first after two years of being shut down by COVID-19, was a special one.
“I’ve had a lot of people come up and say they missed the show, thanks for having it, and that it’s just a very calming thing,” said Sweet Home club member Marie Ekenberg.
A dozen vendors from Oregon, Washington and Idaho bordered the gym Saturday, keeping a watchful eye on the hundreds of visitors streaming past their booths. People asked questions about rock types, others held specimens up to a light for a closer look, and many had cash in hand for purchases.
Mark Logan, owner of Visions Rock Shop in Lincoln City, stayed busy, hopping from one customer to the next in his first chance to sell at a “big, big” show. He’d been waiting seven or eight years for the opportunity, he said.
“It takes a lot of years for people to get into the show,” he said. “There’s a long waiting list. This is my absolute favorite show in the state because you have a lot of the rockhounds and a lot of the crystal collectors.”
Like most of the vendors, Logan does it all – digging, cutting and polishing, lapidary work, jewelry, etc. – but he also markets the metaphysical aspects of rocks, which are said to provide a variety of healing properties.
Tracey Momoda, of Corvallis, said her family went because a close friend had a booth, although her 9-year-old son, Ian Wood, said he was only there to spend his parents’ money. Friend Aaron Moffett, who joined the family to browse the options, felt confident that Ian would get to do just that after their first lap through the building.
“We have pretty big rock problems,” he said.
That statement might sum it up for many, like Mike Miller, of Sweet Home, who said he’s been “carting around” rocks for years. He joined the club eight years ago.
“I finally just admitted that I was a rockhound,” he said.
He believes people like rocks because they’re natural, and a pretty one can be found almost anywhere.
“There’s something about finding a pretty crystal or a nice piece of carnelian agate, and you can find that stuff in a lot of places,” he said.
Cedella Hiner, 12, of Sweet Home, may be pickier about what she considers pretty. She likes how rocks look and feel but said you don’t encounter them on just a normal day. She must’ve been talking about polished and finished stones, because her brother, 14-year-old Brian Hiner, said he’s dug up a pile of “cool rocks” from his backyard, and their friend, 11-year-old Delaney Brouillette of Holley, said she has a creek she goes to for agates.
People had plenty of reasons to visit. Kids cracked open geodes or bought pretty stones. Women purchased handmade earrings. Men brought specimens from their own collection for help in identifying them. And many old-timers chit-chatted and shared rock talk.
Club President Rich Holt said the members were really happy to be able to hold the show after a two-year hiatus due to COVID.
“Two years was pretty tough to not have it,” he said. “(But) it gave us more time to tumble rock.”
It also gave club members time to fill about 1,500 grab bags – 500 more than usual – with a variety of tumbled stones that moved for only a buck, making it one of the club’s biggest sellers, he said.
Also popular with the kids were free rock-painting and sand-sifting activities, which perhaps allowed parents to save for some of the more spendy items.
Specimens of earth’s natural treasures ranged in price from $1 to as much as a few hundred. The highest-priced items included a petrified wood cookie for $695, and $3,750 for a 32-inch obelisk quartz crystal.
Many customers didn’t seem to mind putting money down for stone pipes and knives, which sold out on the first day at a booth run by Spencer Mountain Gems (Grants Pass) owners Jan and Richard Arnold.
“That tells us what the area’s about,” Richard said with a laugh.
Theodore Hiner was happy to give up a Jackson for a spherical tiger’s eye.
“Best 20 bucks I spent in a minute,” he said.
Hiner had been looking for a tiger’s eye – a chatoyant gemstone – for a long time, finally finding a booth this year that had two of them. His find was about the size of a golf ball.
“I’m super-excited to take my eyeball home,” he said.
The Sweet Home Rock and Mineral Society meets at 6:30 p.m. every second Wednesday of the month at Santiam Place, 139 Main St, Lebanon. For more information, contact Ed Anderson at (541) 451-1577 or via email at [email protected].