Digging for Treasure

In the 1500s, sailors used to go to lands far away to look for treasure. Nowadays, a treasure can be found right in your own front yard.

Just ask Marty Ray. The North Lake College art instructor and her husband, Richard, have been searching for gold, collectibles and miniature items that can be found underground. She enjoys using her metal detector to go out in the fields to patiently look for trinkets.

“In two years we have found over 50 rings, some gold, and some with diamonds,” said Ray. “I have found little metal toy cars and trucks from the ‘40s and ‘50s, play metal toy guns, and my oldest coin found is a silver Barber dime of 1898.”

Ray says that one of her biggest finds was when she visited a clay conference in San Angelo last April. During a break from the conference, she and Richard went to an empty lot near a creek and found a real treasure. After getting a strong signal from her metal detector, Ray dug eight inches down into the soil and out popped a Civil War-era medal.

“It is an amazing piece,” said Ray. “Metal detectors [enthusiasts] with years of experience try to find these and I found it accidentally.”

Ray’s hobby shows that instructors can have pastimes quite different from what they teach.