Doug Duffy to Retire From the Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum
By Shirley Cote

work as punishment.  Instead of being put to work sweeping or shoveling coal, Doug was taught silversmithing by the janitor/maintenance man... with a blowtorch, no less. 

In 1991, Doug helped the Museum move from the Fairgrounds to its present location at 1502 W. Washington. From October 1992 to January 1998, Doug worked as a Tour Guide, giving programs to the school children visiting the Museum; but that didn't stop him from volunteering. 

In late 1992, Doug and fellow volunteers worked to clean out a room and turn it into a lapidary shop with machinery donated by the Leaverite Rock and Gem Society.  There were some old wooden benches, three of the Museum's six foot folding tables, six folding chairs and several stools. Doug Duffy and Harold Hill started teaching lapidary for free to new club members, museum workers and volunteers.   
In April 1993, the Arizona Mineral and Mining Museum Foundation gave to the Museum a large donation, which included three benches, a large rock saw, polishers, grinders, table light fixtures, hand tools, a blowtorch, a drill press, and a joiner among many other things.  Doug set to work replacing the folding tables with the benches, put the rock saw, grinders, and polishers to good use in the lapidary shop, and started fixing up a wood shop for the Museum.

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In his younger days, Doug Duffy was an avid outdoorsman who liked to hunt, fish and metal detect.  He was very interested in General Patton's World War II training camps in Arizona and California.  He did a fair amount of research (a three ring binder full) and metal detected many of the camps, finding thousands of wheat pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars, and silver dollars from the 1940's.  While metal detecting, he couldn't help but notice the pretty rocks and he wondered what kind they were. To find out, he joined the Motorola Rockhound Club and the Honeywell Pebble Picking Posse. Eventually he found his way into the Maricopa Lapidary Society and the Leaverite Rock and Gem Society. This was in 1988, when the Leaverites were meeting at the Museum,  then located at the Fairgrounds.


Doug started volunteering for the Museum on Saturdays in July 1988.  Some of his work included moving and crushing rocks, typing cards documenting items donated and to the Museum.  He worked in the gift shop selling minerals, rocks, and fossils.  Doug also taught silversmithing to members of the Leaverite Rock and Gem Society.

Doug had learned the silversmithing craft at an early age (8th grade) in the basement of his school in Flagstaff, Arizona.  Doug, having misbehaved in class, was sent by his teacher to the basement to

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