Visitor To Arkansas State Park Gets 2.01-Carat Christmas Gift

[AFNS] A visitor to the Crater of Diamonds State Park in the U.S. state of Arkansas got a welcome surprise on Christmas Day, when he picked up a 2.01-carat rough diamond in the United States’ only diamond field that is open to public prospecting.

According to the Arkansas State Parks and Tourism Department, Harold Lay, 55, who resides in the nearby town of Murfreesboro found the diamond at about 11 A.M. on December 25. Park workers have fittingly dubbed the golden-brown stone the "Christmas Star," but Lay is calling it his "fried-chicken diamond," because that is what he ate for lunch that day.

More than 300 diamonds have been discovered by visitors to the park, including a 5.57-carat stone in June 2000. Another famous diamond that was found in the park was a 4.25-carat canary yellow stone, which originally was set, uncut, into a necklace, and worn in 1979 at the inauguration of the state’s new governor by his wife - a certain Hillary Rodham Clinton - the wife of the ex-president U.S. senator for New York state.

Fourteen years later, in 1993, the diamond was reset into a ring, and worn by the new first lady of the United States at the inauguration ball of President Bill Clinton. Speaking in November 2003 at the Antwerp Diamond Conference, President Clinton mentioned the now famous ring, and noted that his home state of Arkansas is home to the United States’ only producing diamond mine. The fancy yellow colored stone, he said, was considered by the presidential couple as a very special symbol of good luck.