THUNDER BAY – Contestants proved on Saturday that they take the rolling stones seriously as they dug for roughly 45 minutes during the Rock 94 Diamond Dig.
53 individuals from the community put on their “digging gloves” on Saturday at Dragon Hills Golf Course, all in hopes of taking home the big prize: Tickets to see the Rolling Stones live at Soldier Field in Chicago.
The sheer size of the snow pile meant that getting their hands on the coveted tickets was no easy task and it took a bit longer than expected for someone to dig up that precious diamond.
People used a variety of techniques, but in the end with a little bit of luck, and a lot of hard work, it was Maxine Colosimo that lifted up the diamond.
“I really didn't have a strategy. I knew we had to go a little bit lower. I thought maybe I'd start more on the outside when we were waiting to meet,” she said.
“I kind of picked a side, a corner, and that's exactly where it was, it was in that corner on that side and I was just trying to dig deeper without being buried further and just keep getting to the ground level. I thought they would have had it on the ground.”
To qualify to participate in the diamond dig, all the participants had to do was be the first caller into the station whenever they played a rolling stones song. From there, they were invited to attempt to dig up the diamond in the massive snow pile.
As the contestants dug with all their might, many representatives from Rock 94 were there cheering everyone on, and morning show host Ted Jessop talked about the importance of holding events like this that bring the community together.
“Music connects everybody. And if you listen to rock, 94 chances are you like rock music and chances are you're going to meet people at these kinds of gatherings of listeners who you're going to hit it off with,” he said.
“We saw that a lot today. It's funny, even with some of our regulars, we have a guy named East Coast Chris who calls in all the time and a guy named West Fort Tom who calls in all the time. They only know each other for listening to the show and hearing their names said they hit it off like old friends.”
Jessop jokingly added that if they were to host this event again in the future, the only change they would need, is an even bigger snow pile.
“I think we got to make it harder and longer and we'll have to pick up several days of diamond digs,” he said.
“Maybe a March madness of Diamond Digs.”
