Posted: 6/27/07
Esther ‘rocks' and so do the kids
 Ever the teacher, Esther Schmidt, North Branch historian, teacher and college instructor, showed the folks at the senior center last week the different categories of rocks, just before she tested them. |
By MaryHelen Swanson
If it involves teaching kids, Miss Esther is usually in the middle, at least she has been for many, many years.
Esther Schmidt of North Branch, age 93, just can't seem to stop sharing her knowledge of many subjects with people of all ages. but kids especially.
For a group of youngsters in the area, she is the leader of their "rock culture."
No, not the music, ROCKS!
You know, those pretty, sparkling pieces of quarts, those often smooth, dull gray pieces of basalt, those purple Jaspers and those streaked beauties called agates.
Esther, as a special cake proclaimed last week, just plain rocks.
About three dozen citizens joined Schmidt and the children in her rock club, at the senior center in North Branch where Schmidt gave a brief introduction to the world of rocks. Schmidt introduced them to igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks as she prepared the visitors for a test that would come at the end of her presentation.
She said, "We've found that children that collect rocks don't throw them, they value them."
Schmidt talked about the children's rock club where she introduces young people to the joy of collecting, using a simple egg carton to get them started on identifying and labeling of their collections.
And the empty spaces in your rock boxes, she said, are for your adventure - to find interesting things, shards, odd rocks, petrified wood, fossils - something different.
On one table at the presentation, she had "fun" rocks that really didn't need an explanation.
Adding to the interesting summer afternoon presentation were Martha and Darrold Rasmussen of North Branch. Darrold paints rocks and Martha makes interesting objects from them and has a love of rocks that goes back to her childhood.
Many passed the test, by the way.
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