Tales of underground adventures told by the miners in Bisbee years ago captivated a young boy who ended up spending 55 years in the copper industry. That boy, Richard Graeme III, became fascinated with Bisbee minerals and started collecting them at the age of 6. Over the course of his career, he was a miner, executive and mineralogist, retiring as senior vice president and general manager of Lumina Copper SAC. Now, three years after he passed away, he was recently inducted into the Mining and Minerals Education Foundation (MMEF) Hall of Fame on December 7, 2024, as one of four pioneers in the field.
Richard was nominated by someone in the industry to be considered for the honor. And, thanks to Facebook, Thomas Aldrich, executive director at MMEF, was able to track down Richard’s relatives, including one of his sons, Douglas Graeme, manager of Copper Queen Mine Tour. “I didn’t know anything about it until I got the phone call (from Aldrich),” said Douglas. “I was happy to hear my dad hadn’t been forgotten about.” Douglas, along with his twin brother, Richard Graeme IV, followed in their dad’s adventurous footsteps by also going underground to collect artifacts and minerals from the Bisbee mines.
Working in the mines was always the plan for Richard after he graduated from high school. He graduated from Bisbee High School in 1960 and started working underground as a miner for the Phelps Dodge Corporation. He did that for seven years before life events altered his path within the industry. “In 1967, the miners went on strike for nine months,” said Douglas. “During that time, my dad reevaluated what he was doing in life and decided to get an education.” It wasn’t easy to balance school with work, but nothing about underground mining was easy either…..read full story (online subscribers only)