October Sky Festival

For those of you who do not know, Rocket Boys is a book based on Homer Hickam’s life about being something more than what he was destined to be. He grew up in Coalwood, West Virginia. This town had all its income for the mine and Mr. Hickam (Homer Hickam’s father) managed the mine. Mr. Hickam kept telling his son that he was going to work in the mine for the rest of his life and eventually become the manager. Homer saw more to life and wanted to build rockets. His father did not approve and his mother said, “Don’t blow yerself up, now.” The whole story is about him following his dream of becoming a rocket scientist. The three other guys who helped him out were his best friends. He eventually graduated from high school and went to Virginia Tech to become a rocket scientist. He worked at NASA until he retired and now he is a full time writer and promotes his book, Rocket Boys. Rocket Boys was also made into the movie October Sky. Fun fact Rocket Boys has the same letters as October Sky…I heard that is where the name came from.

Anyone who wanted to sign up to go to Coalwood for the October Sky Festival with Hypatia and Galileo (the girl and boy theme housing for engineers) for a day and manage a booth could. We also got ten hours of community service when we did it. J We departed from Virginia Tech at 5:30am Saturday morning and did not get back until 6:30pm that night. Everyone was asleep on the bus. When we arrived we set up our tent for the activities we had planned for the little children to do to get them interested in engineering. We had three ideas but only two were successful. The first idea was to make slim out of water, borax, and food coloring. That was a lot of fun to play with and it seemed like all the little kids enjoyed it. The second was to make paper airplanes out of card stock and cut different flaps to decide which way you want the plan to fly. The third that did not work were the pop rockets. We used film canisters and poured vinegar in about three fourths of the way and then dropped a half of tablet of alkaliser and then you have a rocket. The only problem we ran into was the film canisters were not air tight so the experiment was a bust. Good news is we had the other two to cover up for not having one.

Since there were a large group of us there, the people that were not helping out with the projects would walk around passing out “Love an Engineer” Virginia Tech buttons. That is what I did. We would also tell people about the booth and that they should go check it out to make some cool things. One little kid had a Virginia Tech hat on so I went to go talk to him about the Tech booth/tent. When I did he was like no I do not want to go make stuff and then I said “would you like a button” and he took it but it was obvious he really did not want it. So maybe an hour later the kid with the Tech hat is at the booth making stuff. Someone told me he went twice. That made me mad because he told me he did not want to go over there. Kids!

There were many activities they had planned other than the booths, such as the parade, showing of October Sky, rocket launches, etc. We stood to the side and watched the parade. Once the parade was almost finished there was a group of (I am guessing middle school) kids with name tags on. As they walked by we gave each one of them a button and with all the other buttons we passed out, we got rid of all the buttons J It was awesome because later that group had a picture taken with Homer Hickam. Since Homer Hickam had a pen and so did all the kids it was an awesome picture.

I was able to have Homer Hickam sign a copy of Rocket Boys for me and Natalie Canerday (the actress who played Mrs. Hickam, Homer Hickam’s mom, in October Sky) sign a picture of her for me. I also was able to get a picture of Homer Hickam and me and Natalie Canerday and me. Both of them are very nice people. Very easy to talk to and made you feel at home, very comfortable.

I had never been to West Virginia before until last Saturday and I learned how country it really is. When you drive there it is like you are entering a different world. I am from Chesapeake, Virginia so I am used to Norfolk’s skyscrapers and Virginia Beach’s beach and all the hustle and bustle. When I got to Virginia Tech, I would joke that all we have for a “downtown” is one street. I thought Blacksburg was country, very cozy and homey none the least. Driving through West Virginia, I realized that Blacksburg is not country. West Virginia is the true country. We drove through little towns that did not have any chains, all were owned by towns people and the town’s built up area lasted about three min on the bus ride. It really made me see that America has more sides than what is publicized. We briefly learn in history how country West Virginia really is, but seeing it, is believing it. After what I saw, made me appreciate even more what Homer Hickam went through to be the successful man he is today. What he did gives young people hope that they can make tomorrow what they want it to be; all they need is will power and motivation. As the old saying goes, “where there is a will, there is a way.”