According to 70-year-old Wendell Fox, he has wanted to search for diamonds since he was a child, growing up in Arkansas. While Fox is now retired and living in Montana, is dream finally came true recently while he and his wife were in the Crater of Diamonds State Park.

ABC 8 reports that it was on the second day of their first visit to the park that the couple, while searching in the East Drain area, found a large, brown diamond, lying close to a marker which indicated the spot where the park’s famous Strawn-Wagner gem was discovered back in 1990.

Newly discovered gem confirmed as a 2.78-carat diamond

Wendell told the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism that he was between 80 and 90 percent sure the gem was a diamond when he found it. Wendell had placed the diamond in a vial and had taken it to the Diamond Discovery Center in the park, where staff confirmed his discovery was a 2.78-carat diamond. The gem was described by a park official as being around the size of an English pea and that it had an oval shape. The color of the gem was described as a champagne brown hue.

Foxes name their diamond ‘Way out Yonder.’

Fox registered the diamond with the couple’s names, as a memento of the amazing experience of finding the gem.

Fox told local media that they plan to keep the diamond as a souvenir of their visit to the park and might get it mounted in jewelry. He said the visit to the park was a great experience, but that finding the diamond was “the icing on the cake.” The Foxes dubbed their diamond the “Way out Yonder” in tribute to their new home in Montana.

Waymon Cox of the Crater of Diamonds State Park said in a statement was it wasn’t surprising Fox found the diamond while surface searching. He said there has been a lot of rain in the park this spring and so far 11 diamonds have been found on the surface of the soil and registered with them in May. Reportedly personnel in the park regularly plow in the diamond search area to assist natural erosion and loosen the soil.

Second largest diamond to be found this year in the park

According to a report by Arkansas Online, the Fox’s diamond was the second largest to be registered with the state park this year. Kalel Langford of Centerton, AR., discovered a 7.44-carat brown diamond on March 11, which he dubbed “Superman’s Diamond.” During May, Victoria Brodski of Tulsa, OK. was lucky to find what she called the “Michelangelo Diamond,” a 2.65-carat brown gem.

So far in 2017, 209 diamonds have been found and registered at the Crater of Diamonds State Park, weighing in at an impressive total of 52.08 carats.
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