People featured in this column have been selected randomly from the telephone book.

KAMIAH - Betty Warrington couldn't keep her eyes off the rock. There it rested, about a 25-pounder, sporting a $1,400 price tag with the promise of even more value once she became the owner.

A beautiful, pristine piece of Biggs picture jasper amid all the other rocks, petrified wood, gems and beads.

"I sat there and looked at that for about two days, and nobody was interested," Betty recalls of being at a recent rock show in Montana. "So finally, I went over and said I'll give ya $1,000. And he took it."

Thus Betty, an 83-year-old professional rock hound, made another purchase for Betty's Rock-N-Beads. "I know if I cut and polish it," she says of the jasper chunk, "I'll get $500 a slice."

Betty's business dates back more than four decades and is known globally, she claims, among those who fancy mineral matter and petrified masses. "I sell rock from all over the world. In fact, I'm known all over the world. I've sold to German collectors, Chinese, Japanese and French."

Widowed in 1977, Betty says she became a rock hound in 1965, after the youngest of her four sons joined a rock club. She took him on field trips, started poking around herself and suddenly ... "I was hooked."

Betty, who lives in the mountains about 10 miles out of Kamiah, admits to getting carried away and quickly turning a hobby into a passion that became a business. "I've bought out 32 rock shops over the years. That's where you find the old stuff, when you buy out the old-timers."

Mother Earth, Betty says, has also provided much of her inventory. "I've got jasper mines in the Owyhee Mountains. I've got another three jasper mines in the Graveyard Point area in Oregon. I've sold my opal mine in Virgin Valley, and I sold a gold mine in Arizona. So I guess I'm down to five mines."

Betty keeps her gold under lock and key in a safety deposit box. She totes her tons of rocks between shows in a beefed-up van with a welded interior cage to deter thieves and protect her in case of a rollover accident.

"There's no such thing as a lightweight rock," she explains, hefting the prize piece of Biggs jasper onto her lap to explain its value. The picture rock was formed from volcanic ash flows dating back to the Miocene age. While various renditions of jasper can be found in many places, Biggs jasper was discovered during construction of Interstate 84 near Biggs, Ore. It is coveted by rock hounds, not only because of its innate beauty, but for its potential to be sliced and polished into jewelry and other ornaments.

"I took it to the Billings (Montana) show and put $3,000 on it," Betty says of her attempt to sell the rock whole. "I had a lot of lookers, but I'm not anxious to sell it."

Betty used to travel the rock show circuit far and wide, piloting her laden van into upward of 24 venues or more each year. It was on those forays from her former home in Oregon to Idaho, and then into Montana and back that she'd take the "crooked Clearwater" corridor down U.S. Highway 12 past Kamiah. "And I said I'd love to live up in this part of the country, but I never dreamed I'd have the chance."

Then her son moved to the area, after which she soon followed. Now Betty spends her summers in Idaho and "I go to Arizona every winter." Not to vegetate in the warmer weather, but to attend the "really big rock shows" in places like Tucson and Quartzite.

"Tucson is the biggest rock show in the world, actually," Betty says. It's sponsored by the Tucson Gem and Mineral Society and Betty, as one of the exhibitors, coughs up around $2,200 to reserve about 20 feet of display space. "You have to have the best to bring to that show," she says, "because the competition is unbelievable. My van will be full when I leave here."

Betty usually monitors the late fall weather forecasts and heads south before the first winter storm hits. Retirement, she says, is a word not contained in her vocabulary. Her health is good, her mind his sharp, and the business makes every tomorrow a new adventure.

"It's a great business, especially when you meet so many people. They never forget you. But it's like any other business. If you pull something on somebody, word of it would be across the United States and in Europe by tomorrow morning."

The integrity of a rock, Betty says, is never in question. It is what it is. But the integrity of some contemporary rock hounds leaves something to be desired. "Old-time rock hounds, you never had to worry. They're the most honest people in the world. But it scares a lot of us to see some of the new ones coming in who don't care. All they're out there for is the almighty dollar."

So watch out, Betty advises. Know what you're buying. Pay what it's worth. And most of all, enjoy your purchase.

"Now here, help me get this rock off my lap."

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Johnson may be contacted at djohnson@lmtribune.com or (208) 883-0564.