Pennsylvania resident Patti Kubli saw an Arkansas commemorative quarter and noticed the diamond in its design.  She thought maybe there were diamonds in Arkansas.  So her brother, who studied geology, looked on the Internet and found out about Arkansas’s diamond site, the Crater of Diamonds State Park.  Patti and their sister drove from Pennsylvania to visit the Crater of Diamonds.  Wednesday, March 31 marked their first visit to the park.  After surface searching in the park’s diamond search area for approximately 30 minutes, Patti found a flawless, 3.17-carat yellow diamond.  She found the gem in the middle of the 37 ½-acre search area around 10:00 a.m. when she noticed it shining in the dirt.  Kubli named the diamond after her mother, calling it The Dorie Diamond.

  As her diamond was being weighed and certified by the park staff, Kubli noted that her brother didn’t join his sisters on the trip.  “Boy is he going to be sorry,” she said with a smile.

  According to Park Interpreter Margi Jenks, “Slightly pear-shaped, this diamond is an intense canary yellow and it’s extremely shiny.  It has its own light within.”

 

 

  Jenks said, “Ms. Kubli’s diamond would be so lovely set in a ring mounting or worn on a necklace.  And, the gem could either be cut or left as is.  This diamond could be mounted in its raw natural form because it is so beautiful, "just the way nature formed it.”  She noted it was about the size of a jellybean.

  Jenks continued, “The average is about two diamond finds a day at the Crater of Diamonds.  Ms. Kubli’s gem was the 108th diamond found so far this year at the park.  It’s the largest diamond find at the park since a 3.20-carat white diamond named The Frosty was found in November and a 5.75-carat white diamond named the Arabian Knight Diamond was found by a park visitor from Alabama in April 2009.”

  The 37 ½-acre search area at the park is the eroded surface of the world’s eighth largest, diamond-bearing deposit in the world in surface area.  The field is plowed regularly by park staff to bring more diamonds to the surface.  The last plowing occurred on March 15.

  She noted that the park policy is finder-keepers.  “What park visitors find in the diamond search area is theirs to keep.”  Crater of Diamonds State Park is the world’s only diamond-producing site open to the public.  Diamonds come in all colors of the rainbow.  The three most common colors found at the park are white, brown and yellow, in that order.

  The Dorie Diamond is very similar in appearance to the 4.21 carat canary yellow diamond named the Okie Dokie.  It was found by retired Oklahoma State Trooper Marvin Culver and his family in 2006.  Marvin and the diamond were later featured in the Travel Channel Series “The Best Places to Find Cash and Treasures.”

  Another yellow gem from the Crater, the flawless 4.25-carat Kahn Canary diamond, discovered at the park in 1977, has been on exhibit at many cities around the U.S. and overseas.  The uncut, triangular-shape diamond was featured in an illustrious jewelry exhibition in Antwerp, Belgium in 1997 that included precious stones from throughout the world including the Kremlin collection, the Vatican, Cartier and Christies.  And, in late 1997, the Kahn Canary was featured in another prestigious exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History in New York entitled The Nature of Diamonds.  Former First Lady Hillary Clinton borrowed the Kahn Canary from its owner, Stan Kahn of Pine Bluff, and wore it in a special, Arkansas-inspired ring setting designed by Henry Dunay of New York.  Mrs. Clinton chose to wear the gem as a special way to represent Arkansas’s diamond site at the galas celebrating both of Bill Clinton’s presidential inaugurals.

  Crater of Diamonds State Park is located two miles southeast of Murfreesboro.  It is one of the 52 state parks administered by the State Parks Division of the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism.

  For more information, contact Crater of Diamonds State Park, 870-285-3113 or visit www.CraterofDiamondsStatePark.com.