My interest in rock collecting started one warm summer day when friends and I were setting around doing the "what do you want to do?, I don't know, what do you want to do?" dance. As someone had just given me a copy of the little golden book of mineral collecting, I suggested that we start rock collecting. We all did and 49 years later I'm still at it. None of my friends stuck with it, some parents were hostile to the idea and tossed out their collections but mine (bless them) encouraged me in everyway they could. My collection has grown to more than 1000 specimens, all on display in my rock room and I still have my first rock. I'm currently the treasure for the Nittany Mineralogical Society Inc. a group that I'm a founding member. We now stand at 119 members and are very active in education of young collectors. My interests in mineral collecting are varied, I collect several localities, Fluorescent minerals and micro-mounting. My profession is Electronics and I run the Electronics shop and supervise the undergraduate and graduate teaching labs equipment in the Physics Dept. at Penn State University. My other intrests are Ham Radio (W3JXP) and photography where I specialize in the photography of non moving objects.