Oscar Branson, an ASD (American Society of Dowsers) Trustee, and a group of Phoenix dowsers that lived in Southern Arizona made the decision to start their own ASD chapter in Tucson in 1985. ASD in Vermont furnished Oscar with a list of national members as of July of 1985.

At the first organizational meeting of the new Tucson chapter we had 20 people attend and 10 of them were interested enough to sign an ASD request form. This gave us the required 10 signatures to form the Tucson Chapter at that first meeting. So in October of 1985 we were up and running. At that time all the members were men who were actively dowsing for water wells, mining silver, locating gold, plumbing, working with animals (mostly horses), and various other needs.

With Oscar devoted to finding speakers, we had a good slate of presenters and many interesting topics for Tucson Dowsers. As the years passed, we continued to widen our subjects to include astrology, astral travel, UFO’s, meteors, chakras, auras, biofeedback, and a multitude of different subjects that were fairly unknown during those early years in the late 1980’s to early 1990’s.  The Chapter grew very fast and I remember our October meeting in 1985 was attended by 55 people. With this size of an interested gathering we could invite dowsers from all over the west and some from the east to present at our chapter meetings.

Most of the original Tucson Dowsers group are now “Sky Dowsers” and over the years a lot of members have moved on to other interests. Thanks to Ellie Drew for reaching out into the universe and contacting my husband Homer Hefty, one of our “Sky Dowsers”. We now know that Homer will help us from the other side if we call on him to hold the energy while we dowse. He’s helped many new beginners focus, keeping them up with the activities, while aiding us older members to improve our accuracy.

In Memoriam:

Sadly, a foundational member of our community has transitioned from using her earthly dowsing skills and knowledge to a new membership in the Sky Dowsers.

Marge Hefty our beloved friend and mentor passed away on August 13, 2020.

Marge had been dowsing for over 30 years and joined our group in 1986. She was an active member of our chapter and was extremely generous in sharing her knowledge of dowsing through local presentations and workshops.

Her topics ranged from looking for what was lost, hidden or underground to her strident reminders to be clear about how to ask for what one is looking for (the phrasing of a question) and how to keep one’s focus (being aware of your thoughts) when dowsing.  She presented on various methods of detection, map dowsing and approaches to looking for water specifying the location, depth and quality of the water.

Thank you for sharing your dowsing wisdom and for the gift of your leadership to the Tucson Chapter Marge!  May your pendulum always be swinging in Joy.