For two dedicated diamond hunters, a winter delay turned into a once-in-a-lifetime reward when a glowing 6.03-carat canary yellow diamond emerged from a pile of frozen gravel collected at Arkansas’ Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro.
Mining partners Jack Pearadin of Nashville, AR, and Michael Schumacher of Soldiers Grove, WI, are no strangers to success at the park. Between them, the longtime friends have discovered more than 350 diamonds over the years. But nothing compared to what happened during a routine TikTok livestream on January 25.
The pair had collected buckets of diamond-bearing soil from the south end of the park in late December. Normally, they would have processed the material quickly, but a winter storm coated the region in ice, making it difficult to wash and sift the frozen concentrate.
At one point, Pearadin apologized to his partner for the delay. Schumacher’s response would later prove almost prophetic: “It’s okay, Bud, don’t worry about it — just leave that big, beautiful canary in there to grow. It’s not going anywhere.”
When the weather finally allowed Pearadin to begin processing the material, he set up a live demonstration for viewers. Using a saruca — a bowl-shaped screening tool designed to concentrate heavy materials — he flipped several batches of gravel. A “saruca pile” is the mound of heavier material left after the screen is flipped, the very place where diamonds are most likely to appear.
After his fourth flip, Pearadin began to walk away — then something caught his eye.
“Something big and yellow was just glowing,” he later recalled. At first, he assumed it was a smaller stone, but when he tried to slide a small spoon underneath it, the tool wouldn’t go deep enough. He had to dig nearly to the bottom of the pile before lifting out the gem.
“I was shaking,” he said.
Watching the discovery unfold live from Wisconsin, Schumacher immediately realized that his earlier prediction had come true.
The friends later returned the stone to park officials, who confirmed it as a 6.03-carat yellow diamond — about the size of a gumdrop. The crystal’s vivid canary color and rare hexoctahedral shape, featuring 48 natural faces, make it especially unusual. It now ranks as the fourth-largest yellow diamond and the 22nd-largest diamond of any color registered since the Crater of Diamonds became an Arkansas State Park in 1972.
Pearadin and Schumacher named their find the "Pearadin Schumacher American Dream Diamond," a nod to the 1954 doo-wop song “Sh-Boom (Life Could Be a Dream)” and the nation’s 250th anniversary year.
Beyond its size and color, the story behind the stone highlights what makes the Crater of Diamonds so special. It is the only diamond-bearing site in the world open to the public where visitors can search — and keep whatever they find.
For Pearadin, the discovery isn’t about potential value.
“I personally was never looking for this — I just enjoy the experience,” he said. Schumacher agreed, noting that the possibility of finding something extraordinary keeps him coming back.
Credits: Images courtesy of Arkansas State Parks.