Sweet Tea Brown Gem Named for the Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs 1957 Song

     Vehige had visited the diamond site only three other times, but he had known about it for a long time. He and his 17-year-old son, Matt, came down on Thursday and endured the day-long five inches of rain that turned the 37 ½-acre diamond search area into a muddy field on Friday. 

At about 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, Vehige was chatting with another visitor when she wondered aloud what diamonds look like. Vehige replied, “Like that right there!” and picked up his beautiful shiny stone. 

     Vehige was not the only park visitor to find a pretty diamond Saturday.  Two other visitors picked up their own surface finds, a 33-point white diamond and a 58-point canary yellow gem. These finds were no surprise to Park Interpreter Margi Jenks. She noted that eight inches of rain had fallen at the park in the past week, bringing July’s total up to almost 10 inches. “I had wondered earlier in the day if we might have some diamonds turned in that were surface finds.” She continued, “Diamonds are a bit heavy for their size, and so they stay put when it rains and the dirt surrounding and covering the diamonds washes away. I knew from past experience that Saturday’s sunny skies would probably result in some nice diamond finds.”

     Visitors have found a total of 327 diamonds so far this year at the park. The Flint Hill Special is the third diamond weighing over two carats found in 2013. Even more surprising is that all three of those large diamonds are brown in color. Jenks said, “Brown diamonds are the most difficult to find in the dark dirt here. White diamonds are the most common diamonds registered, with yellow and brown diamonds about even in numbers.” She noted that in 2012, of the 530 total diamonds found, 131 diamonds were brown and 100 yellow in color. The Flint Hill Special diamond is also the eleventh weighing over one carat found this year.