Back in the eighth grade, Christian Liden hadn’t so much as met his future bride, but he had a plan: He would design and mine the engagement ring he’d put on her hand. How does an outdoorsman go about that? Well, Liden started by panning for gold around his home state, Washington. But when it…

The summer of 2020 started with a sparkling surprise for one western Arkansas woman. Fifty-six-year-old Beatrice Watkins, of Mena, visited Arkansas’s Crater of Diamonds State Park, in Murfreesboro, on Saturday, June 20, with her daughter and granddaughters. Within 30 minutes of arriving, she had unknowingly picked up the largest diamond found there, so far this…