Show: On The Town Station: KNCO File: 9:30.mp3 Air date: 2026-09-30 Source: OpenAI whisper-1 · shrunk from 27.4 MB to 5.5 MB --- transcript --- KNCO Newstime, 1135.75 degrees. Welcome to On The Town here at the KNCO studios. I'm Tom Fitzsimmons and exciting to be talking about one of those annual shows that has gone on for so many years. It's kind of a rite of passage as we get into fall. When I think about the Earth's Treasures Gem and Mineral Show, I've gone out there where it's been raining, I've gone out there where it's been hot, and everything in between. That's what happens in October and it's great to have it here this upcoming weekend. Lori Woodhall is here. She is not the president of the club, Nevada County's Gem and Mineral Society, but she kind of is. A guy that might confirm that is Mark Allen who is here, who is the vice president. Correct, Mark? Correct. How did you become vice president? Now that I think about this. Oh, that was by default, Tom. Default? Did you miss a meeting? I was a new member, sir. Did you miss a meeting? Yeah. It amounts to that. No, I volunteered, but I just have a lifelong passion with rocks and stones and minerals and also would like to see our club grow. It's an exciting topic to me and that's part of my vision of even being involved. Yeah, and I think that's what the Gem and Mineral Show is all about, to get youth involved, to get adults involved that maybe had a hankering about this and maybe haven't visited that kind of love of it for decades, perhaps. But you can kind of rediscover it, Lori, at the Gem and Mineral Show, huh? We sure can, yeah. All ages. Alright, so what are you? Do you have an official title with the society? Publicity, yeah. Publicity, okay. I can see that. Which mostly goes for the show. So that's like being the president, really, when you think about it. Well, no, there's a lot of hands that go to make our club run. There's a lot of hands, I imagine, that goes into the Gem and Mineral Show, too, right? Oh gosh, yeah. We've been working on this for months and months and months. Yeah, so how are we doing with vendors? How many vendors going to be out there? We've got, I think, 25 signed up this year and there's always a waiting list because our county really supports this show and we want to thank all the people that have been in past years bringing their kids and getting the little ones fired up about, you know, it's all about feeding the pipeline of future rockhounds, you know? You got to get those pebble puppies. Yeah, I saw that term, pebble puppies, right? The little kids getting that are into it. And it is so fun. My husband and I usually work in the kids area and it is so much fun because to see their eyes light up when they spin the wheel and all the games we have there for the kids. We have a whole kid's corner for them, yeah, with games and little inexpensive things and grab bags. Now, let's go over your biography with rocks because you came from a rock family, if I recall. Oh yeah, it's genetic for me. My dad was a career geologist and from when I was littlest I can remember we went on, not your normal family vacations, we went on rock hunting vacations. Fossils, leaf fossils in Illinois and quartz crystals in Southern California and all over. Was he the type of guy to be driving down a road with it with the family and all of a sudden see something strange on a wall and pull over? Oh, he'd like to talk about the geology. Wow, look at that strata, you know, as we're driving by something. But yeah, as a little boy he got interested because when he and his brother went to visit a family in Texas they went to a site where there were dinosaur tracks and the dinosaur tracks were so big that he and his brother could sit inside one track. And I have the most darling picture of my dad. He's maybe, I don't know, seven or eight and his brother's maybe five or six and they're inside this dinosaur track with these enormous smiles on their faces. That is awesome. So he got the bug really early on. Yeah. All right, Mark, now you said you've been a rock count for years and years. When did it start for you? My grandparents were avid four-wheel drive, you know, joined every club and they would take me out starting when I could get a seat belt on. Are you from out here in California? I'm from Redding. Redding, okay, all right. Shasta County has a lot of interesting, you know, that's an interesting thing about the Sierra Nevadas and the way that the geology pushed together and I think a lot of people don't fully appreciate what a rich area we are geology wise with gems and minerals. No doubt, yeah. They got the caverns up there. When I drive up there, there's a whole bunch of different geological features up there, huh? Yeah, absolutely. So you got turned on as a little kid? Yep. All right. Yep. You ever remember finding your first, see, I'm gonna call it wrong, geode or something like that, something, a dinosaur egg, things like that. You remember all these things? Yeah, well, a little piece of the quartz would fascinate me. You just walk around anywhere and find a unique piece of quartz in Northern California. It's pretty common if you walk around much. Yeah, but you have to know what you're looking at, right? You know, under your feet, huh? It helps to go out with somebody that knows, yeah. But for me, it's bling. Bling gets me every time. Crystals. You love the crystals. I love the crystals. Yep. All right. The thing about the Gem and Mineral Show, which always fascinated me is a lot of people, obviously, they see, you know, those beautiful, beautiful rocks and they've been cut open and it's incredible what's inside. The geodes, yeah. Yeah. I always get amazed on the outside. Just going, how do you guys know what's in the inside? Right? Yeah. How does that happen? Well, it's about, I guess an area has a history of that particular specimen being found. So, it's kind of just passed on through the generations of this is where you go for this kind of a thing. Like a lot of our club field trips are to certain areas in Nevada and Arizona. Like in Arizona or Utah, we go for topaz. And Nevada, we go for various things, you know, trilobite specimens and garnets in Nevada. And yeah, so there's certain areas that are well known for, in Dugway, Utah, is like incredible geodes you can go collect. All right. And you could find them out there. Yep. Yeah. You kind of have to know where. You have to have somebody show you. Yeah. You know, it's four-wheel drive and a way out in the boonies. And yeah, it's definitely adventuring. Yeah. So. Yeah. You know, it's kind of funny. A friend of mine, Emil Baldoni over at Weiss Brothers, he always says, well, I don't know what I'm going to do. You know, he wants to retire. He talks about it, doesn't know what he'd do. And actually, I brought up this subject of rocks and stuff and minerals. And so because he's always been into gardening. And I said, you know, it's almost like a side type of thing. I said, it's the other part of the terrain that's out there. And he kind of was kind of raised his eyebrows. And is it unusual for people to kind of rediscover this or discover it for the first time at an advanced age too, Mark, you know, to take up the hobby? I don't know if it's unusual. I think the stories that I hear the most are, you know, my grandma or somebody that you knew as an older person, you started when you're young. I think, you know, the fascinating thing about rockhounding is learning about the history. Yeah. We've got the Mosasaurus, eight foot, what is it? A hundred million year old sea creature that we're going to have at this show. You're going to have the fossil remains of this thing. Well, yeah, this is our feature display this year. It is an eight foot full specimen, full skeleton mounted of a Mosasaurus is about, I think anywhere 65 to a hundred million years old, came from the phosphate mines of Morocco. One of our dealers is very kind to always bring these incredible specimens. How he acquires them, I don't know, but he is also bringing a sea turtle mounted a two foot with a two foot shell. But so that Mosasaurus is going to be a showstopper. I can't wait to see it. I know that is just awesome. So how, okay, so how far away are some of these vendors coming from? Are they coming from across the nation and stuff? Mostly Northern California. I'd say, yeah, they live in down in Volcano. Kind of funny, ironic, huh? Perfect name for him. But yeah, Northern California, mostly, maybe some from the Bay Area. But yeah, one year we had people came from Australia with this incredible Tanzanite specimens. I was like, wow, eye candy. Yep. All right. Now this is a show for all ages, Mark, right? I mean, the kids are really definitely welcome. It's always been a special place. Absolutely welcome. The kids have a special spot here, for sure. All right. So what can the kids expect to find out there? I'm talking to the parents and grandparents right now. The kids are in school. I know 12 and under free? Yep. 12 and under free. Admission is $5 for adults. Free also for military with ID. But we have that whole kid's corner where there's spin the wheel and other games. And there's always a, I can't remember how much they are this year, but it's inexpensive grab bag. And we fill those grab bags with really good rocks. And I don't know, it's three or four, it's under $5. And yeah, lots of little open the doors and reach in and grab things. It's called the grub stake trail. And you know, all these cute little themed games and they're, you know, a quarter or something. So it's very inexpensive and we usually try to educate them too. So we usually have materials out there that parents can take home or coloring sheets, that kind of thing. But yeah, so we'll have our 25 dealers and always have display cases. That's a real fun thing to go wander and meander through. I think we have something like 25 or so, 24 display cases this year, which is always, you know, everybody's best kind of to show off what they have. Yeah. Well, it's also not lost on me that we, you know, with October comes the beginning of holiday season. Now, granted it's Halloween first, but really it's... Hi, I'm William Pace. All of a sudden something started there in the background. That's kind of weird. Just by itself. It's almost like a, like a, that's a Martian type of thing. It could be the gem and mineral stuff that we have going on here. Okay. I lost my train of thought to my little caboose of thought. Yes. If holidays are coming. Holidays are coming. Christmas. Is a great time to do your holiday shopping. If you have a special lady guys on your list, these dealers are, there's no middleman here and there's some incredible jewelry, anything also to make jewelry supplies, loose stones, precious gemstones, ready to go. I was doing my daughter's birthday, December 19th. So I was trying to get her some nice little fine jewelry. That's what I'm thinking. Fine jewelry never goes out of style. Pearls. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So it's a great place to do some shopping. And just really unique colors, unique looks and stuff. Yeah. Lots of beads. Ed and Annette bring their beads that they bring from Czechoslovakia. They have direct contacts with families there and they support their family cottage businesses and making these hand blown glass beads. So it's really a cool thing that they're supporting these communities way over there in Eastern Europe. All right. Admission's only $5 for 13 and older. Yeah. You guys have kept it kind of low forever. It seems like. We try to. Yeah. Is that on purpose to get people out there? Yeah. And the nice thing is the fairgrounds isn't charging per parking. They want to, but we negotiated that for years. Oh, very good. Yeah. We also have a really good raffle this year. The grand prize in the raffle is a hundred dollar bill. Plus I hear a fabulous large quartz crystal specimen along with that. Wow. A hundred bucks and the quartz crystal. So there's half hourly raffles, there's silent auction. So there's lots of ways to get a lot of inexpensive things. Okay. So what time should we be out there at the fairgrounds? Yeah. Mark, you want to talk about that? Sure. I wasn't sure if a Saturday and Sunday is same time or what time does it start each day? Yeah. It's 10 to five Saturday and 10 to four Sunday and a little earlier because our dealers want to have time to pack up and get out of there. But yeah. So basically all day, both days. All right. Is it all inside or is some of the displays outside? We have moved it all inside this year just because we've had weather issues before and wind. That's what I mean. It's been amazing how it's been kind of different, but it's going to be warm. So that's a reminder to people it's air conditioned in that building, which is very nice. Yes. Yes. And we will have, so if you need food, there's going to be Top Dog and all Coco's ice cream there, their legendary ice cream bars. So you won't go hungry if you decide to stay for lunch. All right. And I've talked to you before, Lori, over the years, I love books. Will there be like a good books on rocks and places to go, things like that to discover things? I imagine I'm not as familiar with this very, really specific to the dealers. Some of the vendors have in the past had some books. Yeah. So yes. I've always found that fascinating because as you were saying, Mark, like you up there, grew up in the Reading area. Sometimes I do a road trip to see my daughter up in Portland and I understand Southern Oregon is supposed to be like a kind of a hotspot for some of these things too. Oh yeah. Thunder eggs. Thunder eggs. That's it. Yeah. They're like solid geodes. Yeah. They have a certain look to them? Well, you mean on the inside? Yeah. They're solid with agate, usually agate stripes and things. Right. Yeah. And as opposed to geodes have a hollow, so they're lighter weight geodes or thunder eggs are going to be heavier because they don't have that cavity inside. Yeah. Yeah. So. All right. Well, let's take our first break. We'll take our one break here because we're on the town here at the KNCO studios and we'll get to that commercial that we started a moment ago. We and I are proud to call this community home and as a first responder owned business service is at the heart of everything we do. 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Captain Sam, can you hear me? On your left. Prime Cinema presents movies on the big screen as they were meant to be seen at Del Oro and Sutton Cinemas. Showing through October 1st at your Prime Cinemas at the Del Oro Avengers Endgame Encore rated PG-13, Forgotten Island rated PG and Resident Evil rated R. Now let's check on the Sutton. Heart of the Beast rated PG-13 and Practical Magic 2 rated PG-13. Playing through October 1st at your local theaters. Now you know what's showing, be sure to enjoy a movie on the big screen at Nevada County's two Prime Cinema theaters, the Sutton and the Del Oro. Ring, ring goes the bell. And KNC News time, 11 52, 76 degrees. Welcome back down to town at the KNCO Studios talking about Earth Treasures 59th Annual Gem and Mineral Show. October 3rd and 4th at the Nevada County Fairgrounds as Mark Allen is here, Vice President of Nevada County's Gem and Mineral Society. Lori Woodall is here, fresh from working out Zumba class. Became in Zumba outfit and all that stuff. Got your heart rate down. Look how calm and collected you are. Was it a good workout? Always, yeah. She worked us really hard today. All right, well great to have you here and very being flexible with schedule. We're going to have you on Yesterday Came Today, so I appreciate that. With all the things that are going on out there and it's for different ages and stuff, kids corner, but adults and stuff, are there going to be demonstrations like people doing stuff with you know specimens and stuff? Yes, there's rock carving and you know that brings up something. There's people can bring a rock in that they've had in their in their collection since they were young and maybe they're curious what it is. There's a lot of people here that really know their stuff about rocks and so it's almost like that antiques roadshow. I guess you could say, but it's a rock roadshow. Like if somebody has a rock, they don't know what it is. Sure, bring it in. There's people that'll know and one of the demonstrations I know we had last year with being able to use a radioscope and see what the content of a rock is and so these are some of the types of displays that we have on some of the tables. Yeah, anybody working with mosaics or anything like that because I know a lot of people love to see those colors. Yeah, yes we do have someone doing stone mosaics, also cabochon making. Edwina's going to do her carving of rocks, so it's always fun to see. What was that cabochon thing? What is that? That's as opposed to stones that are faceted, it's a rounded smooth stone. Yeah, that just means it's not. The cabochon is going to be flat on the back, so flat surface which lends itself to mounting in a pendant or a wire wrap and you can buy those raw or there's people there that'll have them already mounted and wrapped and you can bring your own chain and there's people that there's a booth that sells chain by any length and you can mix and match and I actually did that last year. I found a silver chain I liked and then I walked over to one of the booths that was testing minerals and said is this real silver and he said well look at that it sure is. Oh really? Yeah, right down to like three percent nickel and you know so it was really a fun part of the show. That is very cool part of the show. All right now the thing is as I mentioned coming back from break you guys are part of the Nevada County Gem and Mineral Society. You guys have your meetings and stuff too. Do you guys going to have a booth there for people who want to find out more about the society itself? Yeah, we always have a club booth with you know information about our meetings and membership forms if they want to join. We do meet the first Tuesday of the month at the Golden Empire Grange at 7 p.m. That's the one at La Barra Meadows? Yeah, off of what do they call it? Grange Court something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah and I want to just applaud Mark. He has done a fabulous job of getting speakers. One of the jobs of VP is also program chair so he's done a fabulous job of getting some really interesting speakers and a lot of how-to meetings which is fun because you can get your hands dirty so to speak and learn how to do things and you had a lot of great speakers from out of the area. I love that how-to thing because I think people they want to know more but sometimes you have to kind of go a little hands-on to find out right? Yes, this year one of ours was a how to do wire wrapping so we lined up a bunch of tables and this is what somebody can expect when they come to one of our meetings. We love having visitors so they're going to come and either see a how-to which a lot of our programs are educational so how is the geology farm? Really fascinating presentations from guys that are lifetime geologists that know their stuff and open it up for questions and it's really a fun relaxed environment and also we have a kids program. Oh, I was just going to ask that. The kids have a separate thing. Yeah, it's a half hour an hour I guess so it starts at six and they have their own and usually they make something or put something together or they have their own speaker that'll come in and talk about some geology aspects. Did you know it was going to be a lifetime passion for you Lori? I know it made it maybe was in your blood but you know you're a lady you could do anything right? Yeah, I think yeah it's pretty much been a lifetime thing for me but one of the speakers I love, I don't know if I have time but sure, one of the speakers he came and talked about did you know there was a petrified forest in Roseville back in the early 80s? Roseville, California. As in Roseville and one of the the trees they discovered was like I don't know three foot diameter and 56 feet long or something like that. Yes, amazing. A whole grove of trees and they were unearthing them as they were putting in housing subdivisions. Yeah and sadness. Yeah, I could see that happening too. So were they digging them up to get damaged and stuff? They dug up a lot. He said the equivalent of three football fields worth before the housing development went on top of them. So it's sad it's like oh gosh what's still there's still treasures under the ground but it's gonna stay there. Wow and when the speakers come in like this they bring amazing specimens. We'll lay it out on a table and you can touch and feel it and ask questions. Yeah, well I think you know I do a lot of history shows that's the other thing about our area is that it's it's so rich in minerals and and wealth that it's just kind of almost part of the history here. Oh all the gold yeah that we talk we talk about gold too. Is gold like a big topic too at these shows and stuff? It is. We have we had a mining guy come in this year and talk about mines and he was well gold is is a big deal here in our community. Yeah. You know it goes into our history so. Oh yeah and of course it's a lot of money now. Correct. Oh yeah. Crazy when you think about it. It's that too. Yes. Yeah I want to go down to the Bear River with my gold pan. I know just gonna see if I get some color. All right we got about a minute left here Lori so let's go over the specifics about this weekend show. Yeah October 3rd and 4th at Nevada County Fairgrounds Earth Treasures 59th annual show 10 to 5 Saturday 10 to 4 on Sunday five dollars for adults children 12 and under are free so come on out do a little early Christmas shopping and support these family owned dealers we do appreciate them. And for you guys don't be intimidated Lori and the ladies out there will walk you through what's uh good stuff to get and stuff. Yeah just look for the yellow vests all us club members have our yellow vests on. That's right and you guys meet first Tuesday of the month. First Tuesday 7 p.m. 7 p.m. All right great. You guys have a website? We do ncgms.org. All right Nevada County Chairman. Yep. And our Facebook page as well. Yes. Aren't you high Texas? You've made this thing happen here. Yes. Vice President Mark Allen publicity Lori Woodhull gem and mineral show Earth's Treasures this weekend at the fairgrounds. Get to it. All right thank you guys. Thank you Tom. Appreciate it. That does it for us. ABC News coming up right now. --- end of transcript ---