For twelve years, we would spend the week between Christmas and New Year's in the Silver district. We camped at the Red Cloud mine and started a tradition called Red Cloud surprise. Everyone would bring a bunch of canned food, which we would put in Dan's Dutch oven with biscuits on top. It was never the same twice and never tasted bad.
     When mining started at the Red Cloud we moved our camp to the North Geronimo. This led to the discovery of a great vanadinite locality.
     Several times we camped near Gleeson and collected at the Mystery tunnel, Defiance mine and Silver Bill mine. There we discovered "Gleeson Redneck" an alcoholic concoction made by the local bar tender. He would sell it to us by the gallon jug, but he would never give out the recipe. The stories are endless and the adventures were great.
     In the past few years our trips have been less frequent due to health problems and busy schedules, but we did manage two trips in the past year. I will miss my collecting partner and his passion for minerals.

Dan Helm at the Red Cloud mine, December 1982.

Dan Helm:
April 6, 1940 to December 27, 2004

By Ray Grant

     In December the Foundation lost another member and I lost a good friend.
     During the past year, we have lost Dave Shannon and Dick Bideaux both were very important contributors to Arizona minerals and localities, and both were known around the world for their activities related to minerals. Dan Helm was not known around the world and only known by some of the local collectors.
     He did not publish articles about minerals as the other two had, but he had a passion for minerals. He loved collecting minerals. He would spend hours digging in one spot for that special specimen. Every year, after the Tucson show, he couldn't wait to show me his latest purchases of minerals.
     Dan was a student in one of my first geology classes at Mesa Community College 30 years ago. That was the beginning of a friendship that included hundreds of collecting trips over those 30 years.
     For many of those early years, we made trips almost every weekend to places like the Hilltop mine, Rowley mine, Silver Hill mine, Glove mine, Apache mine and most of the famous localities in Arizona.

Dan Helm digging at the Red Cloud mine December 1978.

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