Junior Easter Egg Hunt Report

Dear Juniors,

We had an awesome Easter Egg Hunt at the Georgia Mineral Society (GMS) building! My junior members, Nathan (11) and Tyler (10) helped me hide the 200 eggs for our juniors between the ages of 5 to 12. The rain did not discourage the kids from finding the eggs outside of our GMS building. In fact, it may have made it even more fun. Then the juniors came inside and opened the eggs at the same time, while chomping on jelly beans. They were each able to use a lighted pocket microscope to look at their rocks, minerals, and fossils 60 times closer!

A big thank you to Mr. Phil Herren, Gem Section Chair, who donated 12 scopes for the juniors to use at GMS! Mr. Herren also donated his minerals, time, and talents to wire wrap several perfect Arkansas quartz crystals for each junior that wanted one. Another thank you to Mary Gurney, GMS Treasurer, for helping us have a great time and for donating her stones, time, and wonderful knowledge. Several of our GMS members donated their specimens, so a big ol’ thank you goes out to them as well. Examples of our finds included amethyst, pyrite, selenite, blade staurolite, kyanite, rose quartz, tumbled stones, various fossils including trilobite, black tourmaline, mica, agate, garnet, calcite, basalt with quartz lined vesicles,.....etc. Whew!

Little Eli was our youngest member. Our golden egg winners were Matthew (9) and Kate (12). They received very large and heavy amethyst crystal clusters provided by Mr. Kim Cochran (Trustee to 2014, Special Events, and Curator/Gem Box Committee Chair) from GMS. What is even cooler is that Matthew and Kate were both born in February and their birthstone is amethyst! OMG! They were beyond excited.

The parents had a blast hanging out with other parents and sharing their stories. For instance, Mr. Todd Nims talked about how cool it was to find handfuls of shark teeth at a GMS field trip to Alabama. He said the kids had a blast splashing in the water. Mr. Nims recommended to use a shovel to dig the sand and dirt full of sharks teeth out of the water. He and Ms. Gurney discussed ideas on how to build floating sifters to more easily sift the sharks teeth out. So, wouldn’t it be cool if Mr. Nims could help us with a Junior meeting to build shark teeth sifters? Then, the juniors could use them at the next field trip to shark tooth hunt in Alabama. Okay, let’s do it! I will give y’all a heads up when we confirm our day of building.

While Mr. Herren was wire wrapping crystals, the other kids decided to run around outside and play tag. At the end of our get-together, Mr. Herren cut open several geodes that Jesse (10) brought to show other juniors. Our day together couldn’t have been better.

I hope to see y’all at our GMS show in May!

Warmly,

Christine Nell-Dybdahl
Junior Section Chair