After having been in the Gospel Music Ministry for a few years I decided to attend the Hank Thompson School of Country Music in the early 1980s to learn Music Theory and I got a lot more than I bargained for!

Stan and I joined a group with Darrel Magee and Nancy Fox. We called ourselves "Diamonds in the Rough" and we sang a lot of Gospel, some Sons of the Pioneers western songs, and later joined up with Leon McAuliffe as he formed his "All Christian Band" to do concert tours, taking his steel guitar and his testimony to share what the Lord had done in his life when he received Salvation and a changed life!

Diamonds in the Rough hosted many concerts at what was at that time, Rogers State College, now, Rogers University in Claremore, OK. Many years ago it had been a Military Academy. What a history!

In this gallery is a pictorial style history of our singing group, "Diamonds in the Rough" as we lived and breathed music in those days. Although the Country School of Music is no longer there, the memories of those days will live on, our voices, our laughter, and even our tears, forever a part of those hallowed halls of learning. Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end. And perhaps they didn't.