Tourist Finds 2.3-Carat Diamond at Popular State Park and Goes Home With It
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key TakeawaysA woman found a 2.3-carat white diamond at a popular national park known for its gems, and now she plans to use it for her own engagement ring.
Thirty-one-year-old Micherre Fox set out on a weeks-long expedition to the Crater of Diamonds State Park with one goal in mind: to find a diamond she could use for her engagement ring. In a press release, Arkansas State Parks (ASP) announced that three weeks into Fox’s marathon sojourn, she literally found the diamond of her dreams.
Fox had been searching for the diamond for nearly two years when she finally found it late last month while on a month-long break from graduate school. Her dutiful fiancée long ago agreed to hold any proposal until Fox had found her own diamond. “I was willing to go anywhere in the world to make that happen,” she said. “I researched, and it turned out that the only place in the world to do it was right in our backyard, in Arkansas! There's something symbolic about being able to solve problems with money, but sometimes money runs out in a marriage,” Fox added. “You need to be willing and able to solve those problems with hard work.”
Crater of Diamonds State ParFox found the diamond on July 29, near the end of her trip. At first, she recalled, she thought the diamond might be a spider web because of how much light it was attracting. After giving it a kick with her boot and some further inspection, Fox found it to be the most “diamond-y diamond” she’d ever seen. “I got on my knees and cried, then started laughing," she recalled. She named the diamond after her and her fiancée: the Fox-Ballou Diamond.
AdvertisementAdvertisement#_R_ljckr8lb2mav5ubsddbH1_ iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#_R_15jckr8lb2mav5ubsddbH1_ iframe"After all the research, there's luck and there's hard work,” Fox said. “When you are literally picking up the dirt in your hands, no amount of research can do that for you; no amount of education can take you all the way. It was daunting."
Crater of Diamonds touts itself as one of the "only diamond-producing sites in the world where the public can search for diamonds in their original volcanic source. Their policy is "finders, keepers,” according to the official website. Three hundred and sixty-six diamonds have been registered at the state park so far this year, though only 11 of them have weighed above one carat.
Related: Lucky Tourist Finds Massive Diamond in State Park
Tourist Finds 2.3-Carat Diamond at Popular State Park and Goes Home With It first appeared on Men's Journal on Aug 12, 2025
