Rocks fascinate, until kids find out they’re playing with dinosaur poop

Published 11:18 am Friday, February 26, 2010

Students in Brooklyn’s afterschool program are amazed – and a little disgusted – by Gary Kellar’s rock display

The rocks were neat – petrified wood, thundereggs, agates – but none

got quite the reaction as the pretty one with shades of red and green.

“Anybody have a guess?” Gary Kellar asked the students in Brooklyn Primary’s afterschool program.

After a few mumbled responses, Kellar revealed his surprise.

“Are you ready? It’s dinosaur poo.”

A pause, then “ewwww!” rang across the room.

“And we touched it!” hollered another voice.

But there was curiosity in that disgust and the students suddenly

looked a little closer at the rocks scattered across the tables.

“Does everyone remember the rock I said to put next to your face

because it’s cool and feels good? Guess what it was?” Eric Laurence

said with a grin.

Another round of “ewwww!” rang out, along with some wrinkled noses.

Kellar and Laurence gave a special program about rocks on Thursday to the afterschool program, which is operated and funded by the Union-Baker Education Service District and designed to help kids finish homework and improve their grades.

Kellar, who owns Gary’s Rock Shop in La Grande, has given free presentations to several afterschool programs in the area. He and Laurence represent the Blue Mountain Gem Club.

Joan George, who teaches the Brooklyn program, said students will continue learning about rocks with a field trip to see the extensive collection at the Baker Heritage Museum later this spring.

‘Mother Nature’s treasures’

Kellar didn’t just share information – all the students went home with a bag full of rocks that have been polished to perfection, including a thunderegg, picture jasper, an agate and obsidian (also called “Apache Tears”).

“We call them Mother Nature’s treasures,” Kellar said.

When the students asked if he had traveled around the world to gather his collection, he chuckled and described where the rocks have come from – Vale, Jordan Valley, the North Fork of the John Day River, Harper and the Succor Creek Canyon near Adrian.

The dinosaur poop, however, was discovered near Dugway, Utah, and brought to La Grande in the 1960s.

“I like rocks, Eric likes rocks, and my wife tolerates rocks,” said Kellar, whose wife, Jo Ann, came to help, too. “Our front porch and around the house is covered with rocks.”

As he showed the collection, he described how each rock came to be.

Thundereggs, for instance, are formed over many millions of years from silica, gas bubbles and volcanic ash.

“The outside is volcanic ash, and inside you end up with some pretty cool pictures,” Kellar said.

(The thunderegg, by the way, was designated as Oregon’s state rock in 1965.)

And, he told the kids, these different kinds of rocks can be found all over the place – as long as you look.

“Think about what’s in front of you because there’s a lot of neat stuff out there,” he said.

But, he cautioned, don’t be greedy if you find a stash of cool rocks.

“Use your head – leave it for someone else to see and enjoy,” he said.

He encouraged all the kids to become rockhounds when they’re exploring outside.

“Rockhounding used to be a tremendous hobby, but it’s kind of dying out because there are a lot of places you can’t go,” Kellar said.

“But there are a lot of places you can go,” Laurence added.