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Thieves rob jewelry vendor

By DONETTA GODSEY
Staff Writer

Bill and Sharon Van Dusen, Hale, Mo., have been attending the Walnut Valley Festival for the past 16 years.

Sharon spends almost all year making beautiful shell inlay jewelry to sell at various festivals around the area.

This year, because of family obligations, Sharon decided that the Winfield festival was the only one they would attend.

Now, Sharon has almost no jewelry left to offer.

Around 11 p.m. Sunday, the Van Dusens' van was burglarized while it was parked in front of their campsite at the fairgrounds.

Since the next day was Monday and a work day for some, lots of people had already left. Most campers who were staying had already been there for almost a week, so they turned in early.

"We heard the sounds of people walking and talking along the road by the campsite, and car doors opening and shutting," said Bill, "but that happens all the time here. We weren't concerned about it."

On Monday afternoon, the couple had been in and out of their van doing laundry and taking out other items when they noticed their glove box was slightly open.

"We didn't realize what had happened until then, and we still didn't think too much of it until we starting looking through the van and discovered all that was missing" said Sharon.

Not only had her entire inventory of jewelry and instrument parts been taken, but so had a family heirloom, a pearl inlaid mountain dulcimer that Bill had made for her.

"When we went over to report it to security," said Sharon, "that's when I really lost it and that's not like me at all."

She started hyperventilating when she realized all her hard work over the past year was gone along with any hopes for profit at the festival -- and a prized instrument..

"I'd brought more custom pieces to sell this year, handmade, one-of-a kind items," Sharon said. "And this was the first year that I'd brought instrument parts to sell. I was anxious to see how those went over."

The jewelry included many pendants, beaded chokers with pendants, pins, earrings and tie tacks. Some were valued between $95 and $200. They were all stored in a cardboard case with 20 small drawers and six large ones.

Whoever took the items headed away under the west bridge and opened the case to see what goodies they had gotten away with because about 22 pieces of jewelry were recovered from that area later.

"A handful of other pieces have also been turned in to security," said Sharon.

On Tuesday, Sharon and Bill visited music stores and pawn shops in Winfield, Arkansas City and Ponca City, but to no avail.

Pieces to be on the lookout for are jewelry with mother of pearl, abalone and other types of shell inlaid with ebony wood. It is hand engraved, then cut out and a finished with silver jewelry filings.

Some of the designs are Celtic knots, cats, moons, frogs, horses, lady bugs, religious symbols, a necklace of seven phases of the moon and six necklaces with fairies.

The missing instrument parts include two inlaid chin rests for a violin, one with a flower design inlay and one a gold mother-of-pearl Celtic knot inlay.

Also taken was an inlaid tail piece for a violin with a small pink triangular shaped Celtic knot. In addition, missing are two ebony veneers screwed to the block of pin with strips of walnut.

One is a fairy with gold mother of pearl wings, a pink mussel dress and black pearl hair. The second is a fairy holding a paua shell butterfly with black mother of pearl dress and green sea snail wings. Sharon estimated the total value of the jewelry to be between $5,000 and $8,000 and countless hours of labor.

The missing mountain dulcimer is Curly Koa with spruce top and ebony overlay on the peg head, fret board and back of peg head. Sharon had covered the ebony overlay with mother of pearl inlay. Detailing on the dulcimer includes a man in the moon and stars on the front and sleeping man in the moon on the back. It also features stars, trees with a bird's nest with eggs, a mother and baby unicorn, a doe and three baby rabbits, and a fairy.

The dulcimer case is a black padded "bag lady" case with the initials SV embroidered in pink. Also in the case is an Inteli-tuner, and two chord books.

"I think the dulcimer would have a market value of between $2,500 and $3,000," Sharon said. "But mostly my kids were upset (because) they feel like the dulcimer is part of our family."

The couple also found they were missing their Sony Mavica digital camera in a black bag.

A Jeep parked in close proximity to their van was also found to have been rifled, but the owners could not find anything missing.

"We've never had a problem (at the Walnut Valley Festival) before," said Bill. "The security at the festival is good, and the Winfield police have been very helpful. They're trying very hard to find the people who did this."

If you have any information, please call Winfield Police Officer Ryan Walker at (620) 221-5555.