In Memory

It is with regret that I report the peaceful passing of Holly Camp on July 5th, 2003 after an extended illness. Always smiling, volunteering and giving, she loved the many friends she met throughout the past 15 years of rockhounding. And sharing her love of rocks, minerals and fossils literally touched thousands of adults and children.

While MS was ever present, Holly would push whatever were her physical limits at that time to accomplish everything she possibly could:

Georgia Mineral Society – President, EVP/Membership, VP/Programs, award winning Tips & Trips Editor, GMS Member of the Year, re-started the GMS Junior Section, GMS Show Dealer Chair, Show Demonstrator, Advertising & PR, Speaker, Show Auctioneer, Gem Section, Fossil Section, Mineral Section, Field Trips, GMS Historian, Speaker to schools and other groups, Cabbing and Wirewrap Instructor and much more.

Cobb County GMS – VP, active in several roles to assist with the Cobb Gem & Mineral Shows, Speaker

Weinman Mineral Museum – volunteer Assistant to the Curator (Kim Cochran)

Graves Mountain – It was Holly alone who worked tirelessly to once again allow rockhounds to legally collect specimens at Graves Mountain. (And I have the long distance phone bills to prove it.)

William Holland Lapidary School – Instructor

Cotton Indian GMS – Lifetime member through supporting the startup of this group, Speaker

Litchfield & Co – worked with this internationally recognized, triple certified GIA gemologist.

Lifestyles Marketing – Designed, created and sold jewelry, rare gemstones and collectibles through this in-home business.

Steve Camp

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MY MEMORIES OF HOLLY

by Kim Cochran, GMS Member and Longtime Friend

Many years ago during a GMS meeting at Emory University I met two new visitors, Holly and Steve Camp. They had first joined the Cobb County Gem & Mineral Society and wished to become as active in our hobby as possible. It was not long before Holly was serving on a number of committees, eventually working up to the position of President of GMS.

It seemed as though Holly and Steve could not get enough field trips. It was on one such field trip to the Hackney Farm that we had another new member. Anita Westlake somehow got the misconception in her head that we were all very knowledgeable, straight-laced pillars of society. Holly helped to instigate a heated water battle. Anita’s view of us changed drastically, especially when the first bucket of cold water hit her. Anita was never the same.

It was not long before Holly was attending private trips as well. It was on one of these trips that I realized that Holly was a snob. I reminded her of this periodically. She and I were collecting petrified wood south of Columbus. It became lunch time. We discussed places to eat but could not make a decision. We agreed to eat at the third restaurant on the left. When we arrived we found it to be a combination restaurant and tattoo parlor. Barefoot people were sitting on the front steps. I could not believe it – Holly refused to stop and eat. The restaurant may have well been a fine eating establishment. We might have been able to convert the barefooted gentlemen into rockhounds. We ended up at a barbecue place where the owner sat down at our table and told us all about the time that he was abducted by aliens.

Holly wanted to take in all that she could about our hobby. She was a fast learner. She soon began to cab and wire wrap. It was not long before she began to teach at William Holland. Holly also made fantastic art using stained glass. Holly began to help me at the Weinman Mineral Museum and for many years was my assistant.

She was very tenacious and was not about to be outdone on field trips. She was willing to follow me anywhere that I went. She once followed me into a cave in South Georgia. We had no flashlight to find our way back to the entrance. We crouched and crawled through the cave. After a while we saw light ahead. We had no idea that we had somehow turned around in the cave and came out the same entrance where we had entered. She then wondered whether she should be following me into such places. But, with very little coaxing, she decided to try it again. This time we made it out the back entrance.

Holly worked very well with people and became a great ambassador promoting our hobby. She loved to speak to groups. People enjoyed her presentations and especially the talk on Holly’s favorite mineral – malachite.

Holly had everything going for her except for one small problem – multiple sclerosis. Most of the time, no one was aware that there was anything wrong. Holly was so vibrant and had such a bubbly personality that most people could not have imagined that beneath the surface was a very serious illness.

During my last year at the Weinman Mineral Museum, her MS began to appear more often. She was determined to continue her teaching at William Holland. She knew very well that she would pay for it later. Little by little she weakened.

One of the GMS members mentioned that, with Holly’s sense of flair, it was just like herself to leave us shortly after the Fourth of July fireworks had ended.

Holly was loved by many people and many groups. She had no enemies. It was a pleasure to have had Holly as a close friend. Even though we cannot see her, part of Holly Camp will be with us for many years to come.

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Nelia and I were shocked to hear of the passing of Holy Camp. We remember her as being so young and happy, but the years slip away, and now I find myself as an Octogenarian, with Nelia. my wife of 57 years close behind me. We have been on many, many, Field Trips with Holly and husband Steve. A wonderful young couple.

We remember she and Steve mostly from Field Trips with them and the GMS, all over the South, but mostly from those memorable days at the Withlacoochee Coral Digs.

We Rockhounds never die though, we just slip away to another Mountain, or River, and we will be there waiting for you. So listen closely on your next Field Trip, Holly's memory will be loud and clear, so say hello to her, she will hear you.

Our Hearts go out to Steve during this, his most heart rending time.

Ed and Nelia Doyle
member of GMS, Cobb Co., and Panama City Gem & Mineral Soc.

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HOLLY

by Marcella Wood, GMS Member and Longtime Friend

One of the most outstanding members of GMS was not one of us "oldies" but a relatively young woman who died on July 4, as was her style.

The overused phrase "touched our lives" did not describe her; she ENRICHED our lives. Holly participated in all that GMS stood for. As member and leader, she taught, mentored, exhibited, auctioneered, lectured, voluntarily acted as assistant curator (Weinman Mineral Museum), and created both with minerals and technology with flourishes of high intelligence and a very sharp wit.

Look through 15 years of Tips and Trips and you find she could do anything but say "no." When she would have a severe relapse with the long-debilitating multiple sclerosis, at the least improvement she would volunteer for any grueling task. While we watched Holly keep on with this strenuous pattern of trying too hard to live her limited time to the max, this poem by Edna St.Vincent Millay always flashed through our minds:

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends---
It gives a lovely light

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RAMBLINGS ABOUT HOLLY CAMP

by Anita Westlake, GMS Member and Longtime Friend

The first time I ever saw Holly Camp she was straddling a 5-gallon bucket in the middle of the creek at Hackney Farm. She was bent over, splashing water into the bucket and she had the most amazing look of devilment in her flashing eyes. Her lips were curled back in an impish grin and I couldn't help but wonder what she found so amusing about rock collecting. It was my very first field trip, and I stood back and watched her technique. I wasn't at all sure why she needed to fill a bucket with water to collect staurolite crystals, but I was new to the rock world, so I figured I'd just shut up and watch. Holly picked up that bucket and slung it's clear, cool liquid in the general direction of Kim Cochran. He was also dipping and scooping a bucketful at the time and it was obvious there was something more than staurolite collecting going on here. As the water became airborne and the hot August day was filled with squeals and laughter, I didn't know quite what to think. But here I am writing this 15 years later and I still remember that exact moment in time, just like it was yesterday.

Holly had a way of making a lasting impression. Through the years I came to cherish her flashing eyes, her quick laugh and yes, even those rotten puns she was so fond of assaulting people with. Holly stood as an example of all that's right and good in a human being. Although I never learned how to collect staurolite in a 5-gallon bucket of water, the things I did learn from her cannot be measured in words. Her passing has left me trying to imagine a world without Holly in it.

I cannot.