Sedona Red Rocking News

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ndmineral.org General SGMC meetings are held on the third Tuesday of the month at 7 p.m. at the Sedona Library, 3250 White Bear Road November 7, 2017 Volume 64, Issue 8 Member: American Federation of

Our 2017 Sedona Gem and Mineral Show was an unequivocal success story. We had over 1000 paid admissions, a profit of $7,846.27 and half the vendors signed up for our 2018 Show.

1 Sedona Red Rocking News Sedona Gem and Mineral Club PO Box 3284, Sedona, AZ General SGMC meetings are held on the third Tuesday of the month at 7 p.m. at the Sedona Library, 3250 White Bear Road November 7, 2017 Volume 64, Issue 8 Member: American Federation of Mineralogical Societies Member: Arizona Coalition of Rock Hound Clubs Newsletter Editor: Galen Worthington gaviator47@yahoo.com Great news! Our 2017 Sedona Gem and Mineral Show was an unequivocal success story. We had over 1000 paid admissions, a profit of $7, and half the vendors signed up for our 2018 Show. Signing up half the vendors the last day of the show is a positive indicator for a full house of vendors next year. And most remarkable, our show was successful in spite of the new restrictive Sedona sign ordinance limiting the number of signs we could post and five other competing events held all over Sedona and Village of Oak Creek the same weekend. Successful shows don t happen by themselves. It takes a team of dedicated, energized club officers and members to make it happen. I want to thank all of our volunteers who worked amiably to put on a really big show. I want to extend a very special thanks to Bill and Marge Schwartz for not only acting as show chairs, which is a full-time job in itself, but also for handling the large task of strategizing, organizing and executing the multiple levels of advertising for the show. That job alone included, among other things, distributing rack cards to 63 resorts and hotels in Flagstaff, Sedona and the Village of Oak Creek. Also, we can t forget to thank Pat McMahan for offering his home to us to paint signs along with his President s Message Mark Moorehead boundless energy in distributing signs, driving the big club trailer to and from the school, setting up and taking down tables and displays and coordinating with other volunteers. If I haven t already thanked you individually I want to thank all our selfless participants again for your time, work and patience. This was my first time sharing the duty of coordinating the show and organizing volunteers. You all did so well. Believe me, it was a real eye opener, I learned a lot. I had no idea there were so many moving parts. I made some mistakes; however, wearing a lot of hats simultaneously offered me invaluable insight into the myriad duties of those roles. Next year s show will be even better as evidenced by a post-show meeting in which many, including 14 recommendations from Nancy Maple, came up with great ideas on how to improve the oncea-year Show Machine we rely on to generate the important income to run our club. Additional Information from the President: Christmas Potluck, Election of Officers There is no Club meeting in December. All the more reason not to miss our annual Christmas Party Potluck, December 6 at St. Andrews in West Sedona. Our club provides the venue, spiral ham and turkey. The rest of the fixings are provided by all of you. See President s Message, Page 7

Sedona Gem and Mineral November Meeting Program: By Evelina Dunton The Sedona Gem and Mineral Club will meet on Tuesday, November 21, 2017 at 7:00 p.m. at the Sedona Public Library.

The Red Cloud Mine is only one of several places in the world that produces gem quality Wulfenite.

2 Sedona Gem and Mineral November Meeting Program: By Evelina Dunton The Sedona Gem and Mineral Club will meet on Tuesday, November 21, 2017 at 7:00 p.m. at the Sedona Public Library. Our presenter is Les Presmyk who will speak on The Red Cloud Mine The World s Greatest Wulfenite Location. The Red Cloud Mine is only one of several places in the world that produces gem quality Wulfenite. Les Presmyk is the Principal Mine Engineer for the Salt River Project, Arizona s second largest electric utility. He and his wife, Paula, are Arizona natives and have lived in the Gilbert community for over two decades, including 12 years as a town council member. He is active in mining and mineral education and holds a Bachelor s Degree in Mining Engineering from the University of Arizona. Les has explored and collected in areas of Arizona, Mexico, and Missouri, having consulted for Top-Gem Minerals at their Bushy Creek Mine calcite project. He has provided engineering at the San Francisco mine in Sonora, Mexico, the Diamond Point quartz project, and Red Cloud mine in Arizona. He has written articles for Rocks and Minerals and the Mineralogical Record and co-authored the recently published Collecting Arizona State of Mines, Legacy of Minerals. Les has made presentations at the Dallas Symposium, the Northwest Friends of Mineralogy Symposium, along with the New Mexico and Arizona Mineral Symposiums, the Tucson, Denver and Springfield, Massachusetts Show and numerous gem and mineral clubs throughout the United States. We look forward to his presentation. Read his article below! The meeting will close with the monthly raffle of great rock and mineral specimens to add to your collection. Visitors and guests are welcome! Red Cloud Mine The World s Finest Wulfenite Locality by Les Presmyk Arizona is well known throughout the mineral collecting world for its numerous wulfenite localities. Names like the Glove, the Rowley, the 79 and the Defiance all conjure up visions of their spectacular specimens of wulfenite. One locality reigns supreme however and that is the Red Cloud. See Red Cloud Mine, Page 7 Come Join Us For The November Field Trip! By Dave Maple Due to Thanksgiving week the field trip has been changed to Saturday, Nov-ember 18 th. The location will be Diamond Point. The Club has been here a number of times due to the high success rate of finding quartz crystal. The surface has been picked over extensively, but digging down about a foot has brought up a good amount of scepters. From talk I heard from the Rock Show I received directions to a nearby area not so fully farmed. Well, we will be seeing about that! Tools to bring would be a small shovel, small pick and a sifter screen to scene out the dirt. Some material is in rock, so bring your chisels and hammer. Bring adequate food, water, and I m expecting cooler temperatures so have extra warm shirt and a light jacket. The meeting spot will at the Camp Verde McDonalds (just off junction of I-17 and HWY 260), at 7:00 A.M. See November Field Trip, Page 7

I called them and they were very happy about the win. They drove all the way back to my house to collect the prize the following day.

3 Sedona Gem & Mineral Show Grand Raffle Winners! By Dave Maple Here is our Raffle Grand Prize winners, Edwin and Janet Cruz. They spent 15 dollars on raffle tickets on Saturday, winning one of the on-the-hour drawings. They were back home in Phoenix when we had the grand prize drawing on Sunday. I called them and they were very happy about the win. They drove all the way back to my house to collect the prize the following day. I enjoyed a short visit with them and got a happy wave as they drove off! November Birthstone: Topaz Deposits of topaz have been found in Afghanistan, Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and the United States. Both the ancient Egyptians and the Romans associated topaz with the Sun God. Associated with warmth and healing, topaz is an aluminum and fluorine-based silicate mineral with a Moh s hardness of eight and is highly prized for its vitreous or glassy luster. Lapidarists must handle topaz with great care because of its perfect cleavage, which can lead to fracturing. Like Alexandrite, topaz is an orthorhombic crystal which can contain a wide variety of impurities. The impurities can give topaz a number of different colors, including orange, red, yellow, gray, blue, pale green, and very rarely, pink. There is an artificially created variety of topaz sometimes referred to as mystic, fire, Alaskan, or Caribbean topaz, which is a clear topaz sample coated or treated with a special chemical.

Free admission, located at the Hassayampa Elementary School, 251 South Tegner St., Wickenburg, AZ. For Map/Directions to the show, copy the URL address below: http://www.wickenburggms.

Located at the west parking lot on Dobson Road just north of the Superstition Freeway (Route 60). Free parking, free admission, and free activities for kids.

org The Verde River Rockhounds will have their rock and mineral sale Saturday, December 2 nd, 2017, in Wind Mill Park, Cornville, AZ, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. See page five for more information.

4 Gem and Mineral Shows and Other News! Copy the following URL address for the WG & MS website page with all the cool information about their upcoming Gem and Mineral Show, November 25 th and 26 th, Free admission, located at the Hassayampa Elementary School, 251 South Tegner St., Wickenburg, AZ. For Map/Directions to the show, copy the URL address below: content/uploads/2013/11/gem-and-mineral-show- Map2.pdf January 5-7, 2018, 9 a.m. To 5 p.m. The 46 th Annual Flagg Gem and Mineral Show at Mesa Community College, in Mesa, AZ. Located at the west parking lot on Dobson Road just north of the Superstition Freeway (Route 60). Free parking, free admission, and free activities for kids. For Dealer/Vendor information see the URL: General Info: The Verde River Rockhounds will have their rock and mineral sale Saturday, December 2 nd, 2017, in Wind Mill Park, Cornville, AZ, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. See page five for more information. Barb Schultz reports that the Roundhounds still have 15 spaces available to rent at this show, if anyone wants to sell any rocks & minerals, at $15.00 for a space to rent. Contact: Jan Avery Jan. 25-Feb. 11, 2018, 9 am.-6 p.m. daily. The 22nd Street Mineral & Fossil Show is presented by Eons Expos and held at the Corner of I-10 and 22nd St., 600 W. 22nd St., Tucson. This show takes place in a colossal 250-yard heated tent and features dinosaur exhibits, minerals, fossils, meteorites, jewelry, carvings. Open to the public with free admission. Parking $3. Also put on your Calendar: 64 th Annual Tucson Gem and Mineral Show! February 8 - February 11, Tucson Convention Center, 260 S Church Ave, Tucson, AZ Hours: 10:00a.m.-6:00 p.m. and 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. on Feb. 11. More Info to Come!

5 Mark, our esteemed President, watching over the membership table at the Sedona Gem and Mineral Show! More show photos on page 6, courtesy of Dave Maple.

6 Sedona 2017 Gem & Mineral Club Show! Top Left: Peggy, smile for the camera! Top Right: Amy, doing what she loves, keeping people fed and happy! Middle Left: Tom, keeping an eye on those kids! Middle Right: Nancy, hands together in a moment of geological Zen, ommm. Bottom: Pat McMahan, busy signing autographs as usual!

The holiday choral entertainment will be provided by Harmony on the Rocks. Wrap a gift (price range $10.00 to $12.

7 President s Message, Continued from Page 1 We ll have a sign-up sheet at our November meeting to list the item you d like to bring. The sign-up sheet helps us to eliminate duplication. On the day of Christmas Potluck please bring your pot luck item around 5:00 p.m. That way the food will be ready to serve promptly at 5:30 p.m. For fun each member gets a ticket for a wonderful raffle prize and we conduct a gift exchange at 6:15. The holiday choral entertainment will be provided by Harmony on the Rocks. Wrap a gift (price range $10.00 to $12.00) that a rock hound would love and Santa will exchange with your gift with another member (label the gift boy or girl if the gift is not gender neutral). I am looking forward to seeing all of you there! Red Cloud Mine, Continued from Page 2 Originally located in 1862, the mine was an early producer of lead and silver. At the same time, the brilliant orange-red to red wulfenite crystals the miners encountered were beautiful enough to have them pause and collect a few of them. Early mineral dealers in the 1880 s and 1890 s advertised various groups of specimens for sale. These Red Cloud crystals were even mentioned in the 1890 Territorial Governor s report to Congress. All significant mining was done by 1890 and the mine was abandoned. Periodic attempts to rework waste dumps and tailing piles took place over the next few decades. Then in the 1930 s Ed Over visited the mine and found his famous pocket. Again, not much else occurred at the mine until the 1960 s when collectors in the southwest started visiting the mine searching for those elusive pockets Christmas Potluck Finally, our annual election is held at our November meeting. We ll vote to approve the existing slate of officers and are seeking candidates for the position of Secretary. This individual would attend our board meetings, record what is agreed upon and provide a copy of those minutes to the board for review and approval. It s a great way to get to know your board members and club activities at the same time. November Field Trip, Continued from page 2 We will have a chance to gas up again at the Shell station just as you re getting into Payson. The travel time to the dig site from Camp Verde is about 1 ½ hours. Important! Since the field trip will happen before the monthly gem and mineral meeting on November 21, contact me directly if you want to come along. Dave Maple: sceptor11@aol.com or my cell number is Wulfenite Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons By the 1980 s the mine was full of broken rock created by collectors and pockets were harder to find. Then, the price of silver spiked and the mine owner built a mill and hired a crew to clean out the stopes. After the silver price crashed the mine was abandoned once again. The mine was then purchased in 1995 by a collecting group who proceeded to start open pitting the vein, with significant success. The claim that the Red Cloud Mine is the world s greatest wulfenite locality began at the Dallas Mineral Symposium several years ago. While there are a number of contenders, both within Arizona and throughout the world, there is nothing that gets a collector s heart racing than to hold a fine, red wulfenite from the Red Cloud Mine!

8 This Just In. Marge Swartz and Nadine Cummins in SVAC Studio tour 10AM to 5PM November Hi Everyone! Marge and I will be in the SVAC fall open studio tour on Friday, Saturday & Sunday of this week. (November 10,11,12th). We will be part of 65 artists who are opening their studios to the public this weekend. We would love to have you come by and see what we have been up to in our spare time. Marge will be showcasing her beautiful and creative woven bead work and I will be showing alcohol ink paintings, mixed media beading, and glass (stained & fused). We will be in my studio in the basement of my new home. I live just north of old town on Main street. Please note you will be getting to the studio by going down the stairs on the outside of my home. There are no railings on the stairs but since we are rock hounds I figured we d be okay. If you come to see us on Saturday, you get an additional bonus. Saturday is Walkin on Main in Cottonwood. There will be a car show and the main street will be shut down and vendors will be on the street. You will still be able to get to my home (they are just routing cars around the side streets to get from the south side to the Northside west side of town). Directions: From Old Town Cottonwood, just head toward Clarkdale on Main street and when you get to the top of the hill just out of town, you will see a development on your right Grey Fox Ridge - you ll see a sign for Studio Tour with our numbers (63/64) on the top. Turn right into the development and just stay on Grey Fox Ridge and it will force you to turn left, just stay on the street, once you take your second left (you have not choice but to make these turn lefts) We are the last house on the right before the empty lots. There will be a studio tour sign in front of the home N Eagle View Drive. Feel free to park in my driveway or on the street in front of my house or empty lots. I have an electronic brochure for you below: For more detailed information, including artists name and medium, studio locations, and downloadable map, please go to Or: tml for the brochure to see all the artists work and locations. Thanks and hope we see you this weekend! Nadine Cummins

9 The Sedona Gem and Mineral Club newsletter is published during the months of January to May and September to December. If you have questions or comments about the newsletter, contact Galen Worthington at 2017 Membership Application (Please print clearly) Name Address City State ZIP Phone Membership Desired (Check One) Individual - $15.00 Family - $25.00 Junior (9-18) - $5.00 If family membership, please list the names below: How should your name to read on your badge? (New Members): What type of backing do you want on your badge? Pin back Magnetic back Mail this application with your dues to: Sedona Gem & Mineral Club PO Box 3284 Sedona, AZ Mail to the above address, or bring to our next meeting Questions? Call Marge Schwartz: (928) Mark Morehead: (928) SG & MC 2017 Board of Directors: Board of Directors Committee Members President: Mark Moorehead ( ) Past President: Marge Schwartz ( ) 1 st Vice President (Presentations): Evelina Dunton 2 nd Vice President Dave Maple ( ) Treasurer: Bill Schwartz Secretary: Open Director: Pat McMahan Director: Tom Helgesen Committees: Field Trips: Dave Maple ( ) Membership & Classes: Open Historians: Ted & Barb Schultz Education: Mark Moorehead Raffle: Tom Helgesen Refreshments: Amy Koba Newsletter: Galen Worthington Webmaster: Patti Polk Social Chair: Angie Maiorano Sunshine & Birthdays: Judy Feldman is our club s sunshine lady. If you know anyone who needs sunshine, please contact Judy at

Sedona Red Rocking News

Sedona Red Rocking News Sedona Gem and Mineral Club PO Box 3284, Sedona, AZ 86340 www.sedonagemandmineral.org General SGMC meetings are held on the third Tuesday of the month at 7 p.m. at the Sedona Library,