The stone for the 2022 Tumbling Contest was Lahontan Agate from western Nevada

Sam Cook’s 1st Place entry

The Feather River Lapidary & Mineral Society, Inc. would like to congratulate the top 3 winners of our tumbling contest:

• 1st place winner: Sam Cook, Alpena, MI
• 2nd place winner: Matt Johnson, Hitchcock, TX
• 3rd place winner: Zachary Belknap, Longmont, CO

This was possibly our most difficult and competitive contest to date. As the returned stones were sent back to me I couldn’t help notice just how beautiful they were. You were sent 3 pounds of Lahonton agate, everyone getting the same rock that mother nature created in the state of Nevada. All rock returned were very well done and polished beautifully.

It took our 5 judges just over 4 hours to pick the top three winners. I would like to thank Shawna, Daniel, Sue, Mark and Julie for spending so much time to look over each and every stone returned to us. It was interesting to hear their comments while they were working. They were particularly amazed over some of the druzy pockets created by the tumbling process. And most of you removed the polish within those pockets. Great job to all our tumblers. Even the smaller stones returned were absolutely amazing. 

We took all the natural flaws within the rock in to consideration as we do every year. We know all rock is not created equally. But that is the whole nature of the tumbling contest. Everyone has the same chance when the rock is sent to you. 

Everyone’s stones will be displayed at our rock show September 17 & 18. We will have pictures of that display on our website and facebook page soon after our show. Keep an eye out for information about the up-coming 2023 contest.

Once again, congratulations go out to our top three winners!

Lori Millard, FRLMS Inc Tumbling Chair