Family, friends, and colleagues will gather during the AGTA GemFair in Tucson on Wednesday to honour world-famous gemmologist Campbell Bridges.
Bridges, who was director of the International Colored Gemstone Association (ICA), was stabbed to death in Kenya’s Tsavo National Park last August in a dispute over mining rights.
The ICA, AGTA, and the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) will pay tribute to him at a reception beginning at 7 pm at the Marriott University Park Hotel.
Bridges, of Tsavorite USA, Inc., is credited with discovering tsavorite in 1961 in Zimbabwe after exploring a range of hills near his camp and stumbling on an outcrop containing green crystals.
Bridges is survived by his wife and their children, Bruce and Laura. He was 71 years old at the time of his death.
