It's happened again, another big find at Arkansas' Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro.

Rhonda Bankston from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, saw a segment about the park on The Travel Channel’s “The Best Places to Find Cash and Treasures.”

So, she and a friend decided to head out to camp at the park and give diamond hunting there a try.

On Sunday, around 11:00 a.m. on her second day of prospecting in the park’s 37 ½-acre search area, Bankston found a stunning, what appears to be flawless 2.09-carat white diamond as she was surface searching over the plowed field.

The field is the eroded surface of the world’s eighth largest diamond-bearing deposit in surface area.

She found the gem near a sign that marks the spot where the 40.23-carat Uncle Sam diamond, the largest diamond ever unearthed in the U.S., was found back in 1924.

After her gem is appraised, Bankston will decide whether to keep the diamond or sell it. Shaped somewhat like, and about the size of, a tooth, her sparkling white diamond looks like a frosted ice cube.

According to Park Superintendent Tom Stolarz, “On first glance, Ms. Bankston’s diamond looked like a smaller version of the Strawn-Wagner Diamond, the 3.03-carat white diamond found at the park in 1990 that was cut to a 1.09-carat D Flawless gem, the most perfect diamond ever certified in the laboratory of the American Gem Society.” He said, “Many diamonds found at the Crater of Diamonds are of an extremely high quality. As a D-flawless, or Triple ‘O’ diamond, the Strawn-Wagner Diamond is the highest quality a diamond can achieve.” Stolarz continued, “Ms. Bankston’s Dream Angel diamond is certainly a nice diamond. It’s a dandy. We will be looking forward to hearing the results of its appraisal.”

Stolarz noted that the Dream Angel diamond was found in material from a trench that was excavated in the diamond search area earlier this fall to enhance park visitors’ chances of finding diamonds. This is the fourth such trench dug over the past four years; one trench has been excavated each year. He said, “This is the first diamond weighing over two carats that has come from this most recent trenching operation.” Stolarz noted that it was the 851st diamond found by a park visitor so far this year. He emphasized that the park policy is finder-keepers. “What park visitors find in the diamond search area is theirs to keep.”

Crater of Diamonds State Park is the world’s only diamond-producing site open to the public. Diamonds come in all colors of the rainbow. The three most common colors found at the park are white, brown and yellow, in that order. The park staff provides free identification and certification of diamonds. Park interpretive programs and exhibits explain the site’s geology and history and offer tips on recognizing diamonds in the rough.

In total, over 75,000 diamonds have been unearthed at Arkansas’s diamond site since the first diamonds found in 1906 by John Huddleston, the farmer who at that time owned the land, long before the site became an Arkansas state park. The largest diamond ever discovered in the United States was unearthed here in 1924 during an early mining operation. Named the Uncle Sam, this white diamond with a pink cast weighed 40.23 carats.

Other large notable finds from the Crater include the Star of Murfreesboro (34.25 carats) and the Star of Arkansas (15.33 carats). The largest diamond of the 27,000 discovered by park visitors since the Crater became an Arkansas state park in 1972 was the 16.37-carat Amarillo Starlight. W. W. Johnson of Amarillo, Texas, found this spectacular gem-quality, white diamond in 1975. In June 1981, the 8.82-carat Star of Shreveport was added to the growing list of large valuable stones found at the Crater.

Another gem from the Crater, the flawless 4.25-carat Kahn Canary diamond, discovered at the park in 1977, has been on exhibit at many cities around the U.S. and overseas. The uncut, triangular-shape diamond was featured in an illustrious jewelry exhibition in Antwerp, Belgium in 1997 that included precious stones from throughout the world including the Kremlin collection, the Vatican, Cartier and Christies. And, in late 1997, the Kahn Canary was featured in another prestigious exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History in New York entitled The Nature of Diamonds.

Former First Lady Hillary Clinton borrowed the Kahn Canary from its owner, Stan Kahn of Pine Bluff, and wore it in a special, Arkansas-inspired ring setting designed by Henry Dunay of New York. Mrs. Clinton chose to wear the gem as a special way to represent Arkansas’s diamond site at the galas celebrating both of Bill Clinton’s presidential inaugurals.

Other semi-precious gems and minerals found at the Crater of Diamonds include amethyst, garnet, peridot, jasper, agate, calcite, barite and quartz. Over 40 different rocks and minerals are unearthed at the Crater making it a rock hound's delight. Crater of Diamonds State Park is located two miles southeast of Murfreesboro. It is one of the 52 state parks administered by the State Parks Division of the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism.

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