Gemstoners Up-coming Events
 
  Each month the club conducts events and all are welcome to attend. 
  See the  schedule below.
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AFFILIATED WITH and LIINKS
Our Club History
Life Members
BETTY BUSCH      LUCILLE THOMPSON           RUTH TACQUARD        EIKO BOSSERMAN           MILDRED PAGE
     FOUNDER
JOHN WRIGHT
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SEE THEIR STORIES BELOW:
RUTH TACQUARD


             BETTY BUSH
















  Betty Bush is a life member of the Mohave County Gemstoners’. She was president of the club     during the 1989 and 1990 years.  At that time, they met at Rebecca’s and held their gem shows   at the County Fairgrounds during Andy Devine Days. During those days, the club’s membership   had dwindled to only nineteen members. She has not been active in recent years but attended      the show last year.  She showed me some of her minerals and some of the lapidary items she      and her husband, Roscoe made. Roscoe passed away last October.
 












Ring - Roscoe madeTable with slabs


     CHARLES "CHARLEY" & JOYCE BRIDGES

Charley Bridges was born on August 25, 1922 and is a 88 years young. He was the president  of   the Gemstoners’ in 1996. He has lived in Kingman since the early 1990’s and was married to       Arlene. Arlene passed away about 5  to 6 years ago. Charley remarried about 3 years ago to         Joyce Mugford, a local prominent artist here in Kingman. You can see her paintings, which are        for sale at the Route 66/Thompson Swap Meet on Saturdays. She has been  painting for about     11 years and has taught painting at MCC, and the Parks & Recreation. Charley has not                    collected or done any lapidary work for a number of years. He however still has a set of                   bookends he calls his  “Butterfly” bookends, which he found near Helendale/Barstow area, 22        miles out in the desert.  It is a combination of  Agate – Rhyolite and opal.
















CHARLES "CHARLEY" BRIDGESJOYCE "MUGFORD" BRIDGES















              "Butterfly Bookends" Charley and bookendCharley's rock collection

   
HELLYN & JACK FRANKS

  Hellyn Franks was the past president of the Gemstoners’ in 1995 and 1997 and 1998.She and    Jack have been  married for about 30 years. They came to Kingman in 1993 from Tennessee.    She taught Silver smithing, Navaho, wire-wraping and Lapidary at the Mohave County                   Community College for a number of years, until 2005. She and  Jack still do lapidary work.           They  have 5 children, 14 grand children and 11 GREAT GRAND Children. 
















                        HELLYN FRANKS   JACK FRANKS











                    NECKLACE    AZURITE & MALACHITE MANMADE     SPIDER AGATE









  


     JACKS LAPIDARY WORK         JACKS RINGS  PYRITE SLAB             HELLYN'S WORK


                                                 
      EIKO BOSSERMAN

  Eiko Bosserman and her husband Ben moved from Los Alamos, California to Golden Valley     in 1988. They joined the Gemstoners’ club in 1989.  Eiko was born in 1930 and is 79 years        young.  She was a midwife at the army exchange base in California, and worked there for 25     years. She was from the northern part of Japan, Okaido-Honshu.  She hopes to go back to         see her brother and niece there in the near future.  Ben Bosserman passed away last year in     October of 2008.









Tuesday:     Show Meeting: 3:30 pm-7:00 pm - Sewing grab bags  and        Mar. 16
                   skirting at Library, bring sewing machine.

Sunday:       Trip: Pastelite -Burro Creek Crossing Road, meet at                Mar. 21
                   Basha's at 7:00 am

Wednesday:  Show Meeting: 12:00 pm at Library                                        Mar. 24

Sunday:       Trip: Hart Mine - near Searchlight, meet at Java Plum            Apr. 4
                   Cafe at 7:00 am at Hwy 68 and Aztec in Golden Valley

Monday:      Wire wrapping and Beading Workshop-Library                       Apr. 5
                   2:30--5 PM.  
                                                                          
Tuesday:      Board Meeting-Library-5PM                                                     Apr.6

Wednesday:  Show meeting-Library-12:00 PM                                     Apr. 7

Friday:   Show setup-Academy HS gym-7:30 AM                                  Apr. 9

Sat.-Sun:     Gem & Mineral Show - Kingman Academy High School          Apr. 10-11                      Sat. 9-5 pm, Sun. 9-4 pm

Saturday:    Trip: Joint Gemstoners - Lake Havasu - Music Mt. Gold            Apr. 17
                  Mine, meet at Basha's at approx. 8:10 am.

Sunday:     Trip: McKracken, meet at Powerhouse at 7:00 am                     Apr. 18

Sunday:     Trip: Cook Mine, meet at Powerhouse at 7:00 am                      May 2

Sunday:     Trip: Black Hills, meet at Marty's at 7:00 am                               May 16

Sunday:     Trip: Pack Saddle Pass - Picknick - Big Wash, meet at              May 30
                 Marty's at 8:00 am


Local lapidary leaves his mark

Donna Peairs
Miner Copy Editor

Wednesday, September 24, 2008








DONNA PEAIRS/Miner Rick Vroman of Golden Valley works as a lapidary, creating jewelry and works of art from stones. Here, he shows a small boulder he sawed to reveal the intricate design inside.

GOLDEN VALLEY - Rick Vroman loves rocks. Big ones, little ones, precious, semi-precious and common, everyday, ordinary stones. They all fascinate him.

A lapidary is a cutter, polisher or engraver of precious stones, usually other than diamonds, according to the Miriam-Webster Dictionary. Vroman fits that description.

"Lapidary means I do rock cutting and polishing. This is my rock saw," he said, indicating a massive piece of well-greased machinery that sets in the yard between his house and his work shed. "And those piles out there are rocks I've picked up from around the desert and other places."

Vroman uses stones, gravel, boulders and gemstones in most of his creations. Some, he keeps to decorate his own surroundings. Others, he sells on the Internet via his Web site at www.vromanart.com or at Diamondback Jewelry in the Angel's Plaza on Highway 68 in Golden Valley.

At age 17, his family moved to Kingman and he attended his senior year at Kingman High School.

"I attended one semester at Kingman High and graduated early," Vroman said. "I've been working with stones and making jewelry ever since then."

He attended Mohave Community College, where he earned an associate's degree in applied science with emphasis on jewelry.

"They had an excellent department," Vroman said. "I taught jewelry and lapidary for 13 years at the college."

Vroman obtains his rocks and stones from various sources, including estate sales. And he uses his finds in creating his own designs. He also repairs jewelry freelance for various jewelers in the region, and he turns his talent toward fulfilling the desires of customers who come to him with one of-a-kind designs.

"I've made a Masonic ring from a guy's specific design," he said. "I used the lost-wax method. You can put your fingerprint in the wax and it comes out really detailed."

Vroman describes himself as self motivated.














These are some of his rock carvings (left) and smaller slabs of rock that he either sells to other artists or uses in his own designs.

"I do so many things," he said. "If I'm going crazy looking through the opti-visor, I can go outside and work on something else. I find that if I'm doing something I enjoy, I don't procrastinate. I just do it."

Besides his jewelry, Vroman takes pride in working with larger stones and slabs.

"I saw bigger rocks into slabs that I either use or sell to other people who do lapidary work," he said.

His rock cacti are found at the Golden Valley Post Office and other businesses and homes all around Mohave County.

"I made the first couple for my own amusement, but then people liked them, so I started selling them," he said. "They just make you smile."

Vroman also does detailed wood carvings and sculpture, and he makes knives from deer antlers and bones that he finds at swap meets.

"I do a lot of trading for the materials I need," he said. "I taught myself flint napping, chipping stone to make arrowheads, and I've been doing that for about 25 years."

Vroman is able to visualize designs and go straight to work creating what his inner eye sees.

"I guess it's a gift. Ideas just come to me. I like to use my imagination. I see it, visualize it and try to make it the way I imagined it," he said.

"Somebody asked me how I carve the things I do. I told them it's easy. You just carve or chip away what doesn't look like the thing you have in mind."

Vroman teaches classes for the Mohave County Gemstoners Club. Anyone interested in learning about native or exotic stones can call Nan Russell at (928) 846-0927. For more details about Vroman's work, call him at (928) 565-4448.
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Youth Section
Children of all ages are always welcome to attend our monthly meetings. They must be accompanied by a parent or another adult member.

Some of the items that you will find interesting are:
1. Talking with the members before and after the meeting.
2. Viewing the minerals and lapidary items brought each meeting.
3. Listening to and participation in the monthly talks from experts.
4. Trading and receiving specimens of rocks and minerals from local and other locations.
5. Going on the monthly events with other members and your parents to collect, observe nature and the different geological areas.
6. Enjoy the website and read about the club, it's history and newsletter.
ARIZONA CLUBS
X- DANA SYSTEM OF MINERALOGY
by Robert Pedersen

The-Dana System of Mineralogy is a system where minerals are identifed, locations in the world, properties etc. of every know mineral.

One of our club members, Robert "Bob" Pedersen has taken the Dana system and updated it. He has added the new minerals each year since 1995, about 100 new minerals a year for the past 15 years and included them in an Excel file called X-Dana
He has given permission to put the file on our website for all to use and download.

This is a wonderful addition and he continues to add the new minerals yearly to X-Dana

You can open the file with Microsoft Excel or get a program from Open office.org
Click on the above file to view or download.
NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
NEW MEMBERS THIS MONTH- FEBRUARY, 2010
JIM
TOM
LIZ
TREY
CHARLES
MIKE
DANNY
RAY
DEB