Mona Waibel
For The New Era
The 58th annual Rock and Gem Show, held at Sweet Home High School activity gym, was a huge success.
Club members were thrilled with the great numbers in attendance. While Saturday is always a heavy day for attendance, this year Sunday had almost as many people. Saturday’s head count was 1,066, while 923 attended on Sunday.
An estimated 110 persons helped out with the event – either volunteering behind the scenes, doing many odd jobs, selling admissions at the door, spinning the wheel for the children’s prizes, selling raffle tickets for special precious stone specimens, filling grab bags with tumbled rocks for the youngsters, and a silent auction of huge slabs of petrified wood.
There were demonstrations of silver wire wrapping on good stones and then made into jewelry. Seventy-five members of the Rock Club and their families spent a great deal of time setting up the two-day show.
Exhibitors came from all over the western part of U.S. Many cases were filled with native rock found in Linn County. Holley blue agate, orange carnelian agate and petrified wood, all found in Sweet Home, are very popular with local rockhounds.
One display case of prized white crystals were found near Lebanon by Marty Linville’s 4-H group. Some specimens had traces of amethyst. Another case, of fine opal, came from first-time exhibitors Jerry and Roxanne Few of Cascadia. Cases are not judged, but viewers were able to vote for the “people’s choice” award.
Ballots were counted and this year three awards were given. First place went to George Gali for his picture agate display, second place to Bob Waibel for his Holley blue agate, and Waibel also took third for his Mexican artifacts display.
Junior displayers used decorated egg cartons. The Egg Carton Winners in the age 5-7 category were Tiana Lauder of Lebanon in first, Bryant Mizsei of Sweet Home in second and Nathan Kinkade of Lebanon, third. In the 8-10 category, Shea Fritz of Lebanon was first. The winner of the 11-13 year-old category was Laura Grove of Sweet Home, with Austin Mizsei of Sweet Home second.