Homer Hickam looks to the stars in October Sky Festival

By Debra Minor Wilson
Times West Virginian

FAIRMONT October 02, 2008 12:15 am

— Former Rocket Boy Homer Hickam may live in Alabama now, but his heart is never far from his hometown of Coalwood, deep in southern McDowell (or, as he says, “MAC-Dowell”) County.
Every year, he returns to help the town celebrate the October Sky Festival. The 10th annual event will take place from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday in the town made famous in his autobiography “Rocket Boys” and movie “October Sky.”
They are the accounts of his growing up in rural Coalwood while aspiring to be a rocket scientist. For three years, 1957-60, he and friends launched 34 rockets, winning a national science fair.
Hickam and the rest of the Rocket Boys (Roy Lee Cooke, Billy Rose and O’Dell Carroll) will be there, he said in a telephone interview from his Alabama home.
This year’s special guests will be astronaut Dr. Thomas Jones; Grace Corrigan, mother of Challenger teacher-astronaut Christa McAuliffe; and Dreama Denver, widow of TV star the late Bob Denver, who resided in Princeton for several years.
“This is really neat. It’s a chance for you to come up and talk to the folks you read about in the book and saw in the movie.
“And you get to talk to an astronaut. How many times will you be able to do that?”
Activities include guided trolley tours of the Coalwood Main, the rocket launch site at Cape Coalwood; rocket launches at Cape Coalwood by students; authentic classic coal mining museum displays; a parade, food and other activities.
He’s had a great life, Hickam admitted.
“I had a chance to follow my passions in life. One, to work in the space business,” was accomplished with his 18-year career with NASA.
His other passion is writing. It surprises a lot of people, he said, that his first book was not “Rocket Boys.” It was “Torpedo Junction,” still in print and written while he was at NASA.
However, “Rocket Boys” — his second book, written in 1998 after his retirement from NASA — established his career as a writer.
Now, he’s finished book No. 10, “Red Helmet,” set in the West Virginia coal mining country of today. And he’s polishing up book 11, the memoirs of Anousheh Ansari, the first female private space explorer, the fourth private explorer to visit space and the first astronaut of Iranian descent.
“I’ve always been proud of being a West Virginian,” he said. “It was always in the back of my mind to write about growing up in coal, to bring out the strengths and native intelligence of the people who raised me.”
A short article, “The Big Creek Missile Agency,” he’d written for Air & Space Magazine in 1994 was expanded into 1998’s “Rocket Boys” book.
It has been translated into eight languages, was selected by the New York Times as one of its Great Books of 1998 and was an alternate Book-of-the-Month selection for both the Literary Guild and Doubleday book clubs. It was also nominated by the National Book Critics Circle as best Biography of 1998. It is available in abridged audio book, electronic book, large print and is a Reader’s Digest Condensed Book.
“This is how I can tell the real story of West Virginia, using those three years when I built rockets in Coalwood. People grabbed hold of that.
“What appealed to me was the dichotomy of boys looking at the stars while the men and women of Coalwood were digging coal. I wanted to tell that story, to contrast the future with the past, to bring out the strengths of West Virginia. It’s a classic.”
The book and movie have become vital parts of English programs in schools across the country, he said.
“As proud as I am of my NASA career, my fame, if it exists at all, will be of as an author.”
He delivered a speech at the memorial for the fallen Sago coal miners Jan. 15, 2006, at West Virginia Wesleyan College.
“There was not a dry eye in the house, including mine,” he said. “It was a dramatic and emotional day. That’s why I wrote ‘Red Helmet.’ I had signed to write another book, but after Sago I met with the families and thought I needed to write about the coal mining country of years ago and today.”
If approached, he said, he “would love” to write the memoirs of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, he said.
Saturday will be “just a grand day of events all over the little town,” he said.
“I invite everybody to come to the festival,” he said. “It’s great for me to come back to West Virginia. Wherever I go, I talk about West Virginia and how proud I am to be a West Virginian.”
For more information on the October Sky Festival, call (304) 297-4660 or (304) 297-4124, or visit www.coalwoodwestvirginia.com/october_sky_festival.htm
E-mail Debra Minor Wilson at dwilson@timeswv.com.

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