Ron Purvis, born in 1922 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, joined St. George`s Indian Residential School as a supervisor in 1945 after he`d been discharged from the Canadian Army. He was at the school for 14 years before "retiring" to a mountain valley near Lillooet, BC, where he became a fruit rancher, gem finder and gem cutter. At the same time, Ron was writing a regular column on BC gemstones for BC Outdoors magazine and rockhound and lapidary publications. He now lives in Parksville, BC.