Arkansas man finds 9-carat diamond at Crater of Diamonds State Park

坚持不懈.

Kevin Kinard was visiting Arkansas’ Crater of Diamonds State Park when he discovered a 9.07 carat diamond.

Kinard, from Maumelle, 阿肯色州, has been going to park since a second-grade field trip — even though he had always come back empty handed.

He’s 33 现在. And he’s got the second-largest diamond found in the park’s history.

Kinard was at the park with friends on Labor Day.

“Anything that looked like a crystal, I picked it up and put it in my bag,” he said in a news release from the park.

The bank branch manager then came across a marble-sized crystal.

“It kind of looked interesting and shiny, ” Kinard said. “I just thought it might’ve been glass.”

的 9.07 carat diamond found in Crater of Diamonds State Park.

After hours of searching, the friends stopped by the park’s Diamond Discovery Center to have their stones examined.

片刻之后, Kinard was called into an office and given the good news.

“I honestly teared up when they told me. I was in complete shock,” 他说.
He decided to call his find the Kinard Friendship Diamond.

“It weighs 9.07, and I found it on 9/7. I thought that was so unique.”

多于 75,000 diamonds have been unearthed at the park since the first ones were discovered in 1906.

The park has a “finders keepers” 政策, which is pretty generous considering the many large diamonds that have been found there, as regular CNN readers may recall.

Among the finds:
— Teacher Josh Lanik who found a 2.12-carat diamond while on vacation 去年 — surely a great show-and-tell once the school year began.

Josh Lanik, 36, was vacationing with his family when he discovered a brandy-colored gem at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, 阿肯色州.
— Fourteen-year-old Kalel Langford whose dream of finding a diamond came true after just 30 分钟 2017.

— Dan Frederick and his daughter Lauren, after less than an hour in the park on their first visit, found a 2.03 carat diamond 在十月 2016.

— 在六月 2015, park visitor Bobbie Oskarson of Longmont, 科罗拉多州, discovered an icicle-shaped 8.52 carat diamond while digging around the Pig Pen, a 37-acre search field.

— Susie Clark, who is from Evening Shade, 阿肯色州, 在四月份 2015 found a 3.69-carat white, teardrop-shaped diamond in a plowed field in the park. Clark named it the Hallelujah Diamond.

— Dean Filppula, an offshore steward from Shreveport, 路易斯安那州, 发现 a yellow 2.01-carat diamond 二月里 2015.

— We even went hunting for one in 2015.