The Presmyks, Les and Paula: Arizona’s Luminary Mineral Collectors

Abstract

P AND LES PRESMYK started dating as seniors at Cortez High School in Phoenix, Arizona. It was not until 1978 that they stumbled upon evidence of their first meeting, which occurred when they decided to take a trip to Mexico. To visit Mexico, they needed proof of birth in the United States to obtain a passport. Their parents provided them each with their hospital-issued birth certificate. Looking over the information on each certificate they were stunned to discover that they not only were born just seven hours apart from each other but also in the same hospital, Phoenix General! This remarkable discovery, like so many that followed, helped create a partnership and enduring marriage that has flourished for fifty-two years, forty-six of which as a mutually supportive married couple that included a decades long passion for minerals. I first met Paula and Les in 1982 at the Desert Inn Mineral Show in Tucson, then one of the most important satellite shows for mineral collectors that preceded the opening of the four-day Tucson Gem & Mineral Society (TGMS) Show, now held at the Tucson Convention Center. What immediately struck me was their warmth and engaging willingness to share information about the specimens they offered in their hotel room, including numerous fine Arizona minerals, particularly choice thumbnail calcites, and pyrites collected in the Magma mine in Superior. It turned out that Les had been working at the mine since 1976, soon after earning his bachelor’s degree in mining engineering from the University of Arizona. Paula earned her bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from the same school in 1974. Within a year after graduating, she secured a position at Miami Copper Operations’ assay and metallurgical laboratory in Arizona, a subsidiary of Cities Service Company. Within seven years she became the assistant head assayer at the Magma Copper Company’s mine in Superior, where Les worked. As their interest in minerals evolved they started a parttime mineral dealership called De Natura in 1977, named after the second of Agricola’s books, De Natura Fossilium, a work that had been translated into English by Mark and Jean Bandy in 1955. They became good friends with Jean Bandy during the 1970s and even helped pack and transfer the Bandy’s collection when it was donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. De Natura’s logo was designed by Wendell Wilson, a talented artist and now editor/publisher of the Mineralogical Record. Arizona’s Luminary Mineral Collectors