What Did Teacher Do on Vacation? Something Awesome

What did you do on your summer vacation? Josh Lanik's class will have a tough time topping his story. The 36-year-old Nebraska teacher managed to find the biggest diamond found in 2019 to-date at Crater of Diamonds State Park during a two-hour visit last week. A press release from the park in Murfreesboro, Ark., quotes Lanik as saying "It was blatantly obvious there was something different about it. I saw the shine, and when I picked it up and rolled it in my hand, I noticed there weren’t any sharp edges." He dropped the brandy-colored find in his bag and later ended the visit at the park's discovery center, where an employee determined it was a diamond that clocked in at 2.12 carats.

And he almost didn't find it, he tells the Washington Post: The morning had been hot, his family was hungry for lunch, and their finds so far had been rock and glass. Then he saw it in the gravel. It's one of 296 diamonds surfaced in the park this year, and one of just 11 weighing at least one carat. And, per park policy, it's his for keeps, and he says his plan is to keep it, rather than sell. If a brown-colored diamond seems, well, not like a diamond, the park explains they come in a multitude of colors and that brown is actually the second-most-common color after white. As for the value of Lanik's diamond, he wouldn't share it with the Post, but the paper managed to find similar ones on eBay for less than $1,000. (See more of the cool finds from Crater of Diamonds here.)