Clopton, Edwin L. (1960- )

Edwin L. "Ed" Clopton was born in 1960 and lived in eastern Iowa (and briefly in northern Illinois) until relocating to Maine in 2008. He has been actively collecting minerals since the mid-1980s, concentrating especially on Pint's quarry, Raymond, Iowa; the Mount Carroll quarry, west of Mount Carroll, Illinois; and, during 11 summers as a seasonal U.S. National Park Service ranger at Jewel Cave National Monument pegmatites in the southern Black Hills of South Dakota. In 2007 he sold his 700+ specimen micromount collection(retaining a few dozen favorites for microscope demos at mineral shows) to direct his attention toward specimens of more displayable size. As of 2013 his collections total about 1600 cataloged specimens. He taught high school math for seven years, worked in medical electronics for three years, and since training as a paramedic in 2000-2001 has worked as a hospital emergency-room technician. He volunteered his services to compile the subject section of the 25-year index to The Mineralogical Record published in 1996.