U.S.S. Aquila: The Last 10 Years, 2000-2010, Years of Change and Renewal
By Rob Langenderfer
November 20, 2010
The year of 2001 was the 10th anniversary of the Dover Peace Conference, and several work parties were held at Tammy Borchardt’s house to prepare various things that the Aquila was doing there. Glenna, Erin, Tammy B., Mark Bradford, Cyndi, Becky, Sam and Nelson were at Dover that year from the regular Aquila crew as well as several friends of the ship, and everyone had a good time, putting on a skit and eating chocolate galore. Several Aquila members attended the Star Trek: Voyager series finale watching party coordinated by the U.S.S. Camelot. Tammy Borchardt was promoted to Captain, and Tammy Widener was promoted to Lt. Cmdr in June. It was also decided that month that no one could rise higher than the rank of Captain unless they had served as CO of the ship.
At the end of July, the Aquila received the news that its CO and Activities Committee chair and the driving force behind so many Aquila events over the last 10 years, Glenna Juilfs, was moving to Texas with her son, Cadet Corps Commander Erin Pence. The crew gathered for a final time at Tammy Borchardt’s house to see Glenna and Erin off. It was a very nice party in which many good memories were recalled and much fun and fellowship were had by the many who attended.
However, with Glenna and Erin gone, the other members of their family, such as Lynda and her daughters, Janet and her sons and various others stopped coming to meetings. The ship was irrevocably changed. Still, the members soldiered on. In August, Sam Hearld was voted the ship’s CO, Linda not wishing to move up from her position as 1st officer. Tammy Borchardt was confirmed as 2nd officer and Rob Langenderfer was elected 3rd officer. Diane Baker volunteered to become the new newsletter editor.
In September, Aimee Weber hosted a party when the premiere of Enterprise, the 5th Star Trek series, aired. It was also during that month that a very large contingent of Aquila members traveled in a van up to the Ohio Renaissance Festival. The U.S.S. Aquila voted Tammy Borchardt Officer of the Year for 2001, but 2001 would be her last year actively in the club, and in April of 2002 she formally resigned the 2nd Officer position. (I was then elected 2nd Officer, and the position of 3rd Officer was dropped.)
In March of 2002, the club answered phones at WCET, and later that month the group served as panelists at Millennicon, comparing the Harry Potter books and the Chronicles of Narnia books and also leading a panel on tolerance in Star Trek. Aimee Weber attended a day focused on Mars in July at the Covington library where Mike Resnick, David High, and Lyle Kelly were the featured speakers while Diane attended the Renaissance Festival again after having attended Midwest Con in June. Rob hosted a club video party in November, and in December Nelson and Rob attended a recruiting drive for the opening of Star Trek: Nemesis along with members of the U.S.S. Melbourne.
In March of 2003 the Aquila did panels at Millennicon on the timelessness of Tolkien and African-Americans in SF. In April Rob arranged for journalist Kevin Pettite to come to speak to the Aquila about his experiences meeting astronauts and covering the space program. Sam hosted a video party at his place in Butler in May that many club members attended, and Diane was on 5 panels at Marcon. Her panels included ones on “Alien Protagonists”, “Resurrected Heroes”, writing and research and “What You Should Have Read”. Diane attended MythCon later that year, and Rob, Linda and Diane attended and were panelists at Third Rock that August (organized by the U.S.S. Camelot), leading a discussion on “Why We Miss Babylon 5”. Rob hosted a video party for the 40th anniversary of Dr. Who in November at which other SF programs were also shown.
In March of 2004 the Aquila did panels on Apocalyptic SF and the State of Star Trek at Millennicon. In April the SF book discussion group began with War of the Worlds being the first book discussed at the Independence, KY library. Although the book discussion group was separate from the Aquila (like the Star Hawk) enough members attended its gatherings that substantial coverage of it here seems justified. All of the books discussed in the group, which has continued to this day (although no longer officially sponsored by the library as was once the case) will be listed in an appendix. Moreover, the book discussion group provided a real outlet for the members’ energies that had not been present since Glenna Juilfs and Tammy Borchardt had been active in the group and had involved people in so many different things. In April, the Aquila also agreed to the formation of an editorial board to resolve any problems that may come up related to the newsletter.
In May Diane served on five panels at Marcon, including “Is God a Fan?”, “Mordor and Morden: Similar Elements in B5 and Lord of the Rings”, “The Matrix: Classic or Cliché?” , led a Christian Fandom meeting and portrayed Willow in “Once More with Feeling”, the Buffy sing-along.
In June Stephanie Rechtin attended her first meeting of the group which was a combined book discussion of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game as well as a meeting that was held at Independence library and then at Aimee Weber’s house when the library closed.
In July several Aquila members attended an event at the Covington library that featured Joe and Gay Haldeman and Mike Resnick. Diane again attended MythCon that featured Neil Gaiman as the Guest of Honor. In October the U.S.S. Aquila held a joint picnic with the U.S.S. Melbourne.
In November we had the last book discussion that was officially sponsored by the library. The book group still continued to meet. At Millennicon in 2005 the group led panel discussions on “The Universe of Star Wars” and “Humans, Beasts and Telepathy.”
In late April Sam decided to step down as CO largely because of family considerations. On May 1, 2005, following a nomination to the position by 1st Officer Linda Widener, Rob Langenderfer was elected as CO on an interim basis. (In August he would be elected CO on a permanent basis, as per the 2-year election rule then in effect.) Stephanie was also appointed Recruiting Officer at the meeting.
Later in May the crew gathered to watch the series finale of Star Trek: Enterprise at the home of Stephanie Rechtin. At this point, for the first time in almost 18 years there was no new Star Trek series on TV, and there began to be a search to try to find a new focus for the club as even after the Aquila became a general SF club, Star Trek had always rated highly in terms of what it was built around. In September Brett Strittmatter joined the club as its Science Chief.
At the club’s 15th anniversary party that Stephanie hosted at her house in December, club members had such a good time playing different games that people began to feel that the club had to move beyond Barnes and Nobles where it had met for the last 10 years so that the group could do more things like play games and watch videos on a regular basis. Stephanie indicated her willingness to host club meetings at her house on a regular basis, and after January (and exactly 10 years of meetings at Barnes and Nobles), the club began to meet at the Rechtin home in Ft. Wright, KY. Although games did not end up being played every month, it was a change from the bookstore.
In April Rob and Stephanie and Diane heard SF author David Drake speak at the Covington library. Also in April the club was given a complete set of off-air recordings of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Babylon 5, Crusade and the V miniseries by a family who were clearing out some of their video library. Stephanie agreed to house the videos at her apartment. They formed the backbone of a club video library which grew through the years.
Glenna and Erin came back to town for a visit at the end of April, and Linda and Stephanie and myself were able to see them at her daughter Lynda’s house along with many others of her relatives. It was truly wonderful to see them.
Diane served on a panel about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine at Marcon and also served on a panel comparing Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and on one comparing Star Trek and Star Wars.
In August, Linda, Velma (Linda’s sister), Stephanie, Brett, Rob and Art Lauer and Chris Wright journeyed up to the Star Wars exhibit that was held in Columbus at the COSI museum. The different things present in the exhibit were truly fascinating, and after that Brett and Rob went to a cookout celebrating the 20th anniversary of the U.S.S. Columbus.
In March of 2007 a group from the U.S.S. Aquila went over to the Cincinnati Observatory. Later that month club members did panels at Millennicon on Magical Systems in SF and on Heroes and other SF TV shows. In April Gary Pierce (who also belonged to Starbase Karma came to his first U.S.S. Aquila meeting. In May, Rob, Brett, Stephanie and Diane attended Marcon. Diane participated in The State vs. Severus Snape, dressed up as Snape! She was also in two versions of Eight Deadly Words (“I don’t care what happens to these people!”) about how the lack of good characters can doom both literary and media SF.
Longtime Aquila member Captain Leonard Robinson died in June after complications from a stroke. Leonard had been a very active member of the group in the mid 1990s, being interested in science and history. He had created a fantasy world that only he had understood the intricacies of that could often be baffling to other people when he tried to explain it and when he made reference to it in speaking (as he often did). However, that was one of his charms, and the crew is less for his warmth and humor. Several Aquila crewmembers attended his funeral. The July issue of the newsletter was dedicated to him and it contained several Leonard Robinson tribute articles written by Glenna, Diane and Rob. A copy of it was sent to his wife Shirley who moved to West Virginia after his death.
In July Stephanie, Rob, Linda, Tina, and Greg attended the release party for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at Borders. In August we had our last regular meeting at Stephanie’s Ft. Wright residence as she was moving to an apartment in Newport. In October the group began meeting at Barnes and Nobles at Newport on the Levee.
In February of 2008 Rob, Diane, Stephanie and Lily and Sarah Lights attended Itsnotacon in Columbus. Dave Woodard organized the convention, and Joe Manning came down for the convention. It was the last time I saw Joe before he died in March of 2010 (although we chatted on Facebook the month that he died), but we had a good time remembering Dovers and the different Star Trek clubs and people that we had known. In February we also had a planning meeting for Millennicon at Aimee’s where we watched 2001 and 2010 and a show about the making of 2001.
At Millennicon a good number of Aquila members were on a panel about 2001 and 2010 and on one titled “Harry Potter and the Seven Magic Books.” In April Stephanie and Rob met Kaza Kingsley, a local author at a meeting of the American Hobbit Society and in June Kingsley came to our book discussion of her book Erec Rex: The Dragon’s Eye and shared fun tidbits of what was coming up in the series. In August Kingsley joined us for a discussion of her second book Erec Rex: The Monsters of Otherness.
Stephanie hosted a Heroes marathon in September at her Newport apartment in which members of Starbase Karma joined a number of Aquilans. In January of 2009 Stephanie was elected 2nd Officer of the club. In March of 2009 the U.S.S. Aquila once again had several panels at Millennicon. This year the group tackled Isaac Asimov’s Robot books, Frank Herbert’s Dune books and films and the novels of Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs which featured a world in the center of the earth.
In April the group voted to change its meeting location to the Kenton County Public Library in Covington. The Barnes and Nobles at Newport on the Levee, though a nice bookstore, was very noisy, had small tables that were a strain to fit many people around and there was hardly an inexpensive place nearby for members to eat after a meeting should they wish to do so, and a year and a half there had not netted any regular new members.
In May, the new film, titled simply Star Trek, starring Chris Pine as Captain Kirk and Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy playing different versions of Spock, came out to theaters. The atmosphere for the release of the film was truly electric, unlike anything since Star Trek: First Contact from 1996 among Trek films. The Aquila had a recruiting drive at the Florence cinema, with Linda, Rob, Brett, Stephanie, Gary, and Vanessa participating. Everyone was very excited about the film and really liked it. Many flyers were passed out, but unfortunately it did not lead to any new club members.
In August and September the club had a number of events. In August a good number of members went to the Cincinnati Museum Center on a free day to see the exhibits there. Later in August Kaza Kingsley discussed Erec Rex: The Search for Truth with the group. The group also approved the ship’s policy manual that month, with the group mission statement and club spirit statement having been previously ratified in April.
In September, Brett, Rob and Stephanie went up to Spaceballs where they socialized with members of the U.S.S. Camelot and other SF clubs, and Stephanie received a certificate for Longest Drive because she was the person who took the longest to finish the course!
In January of 2010 Glenna Juilfs became the club co-web master and added a great deal of new material to the club web site. During that month the club election procedures were revised to include yearly votes of confidence for the command staff with elections whenever a command staff member wants to step down. In February author Christopher Bennett joined the group for its discussion of his novel Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Buried Age.
The club participated in one official club panel at Millennicon on the new Star Trek film in March and different members were on other panels at the convention, all of which went well. At the end of March and in April policy guidelines for newsletter articles and the powers of the newsletter editor were drafted and approved by the command staff and the newsletter editor. In June several Aquila members journeyed to the Kentucky Renaissance Festival.
The group was now much smaller than it had been nine or even seven years earlier, with meeting attendance of five being considered very respectable. However, the group persevered. It has outlasted many other Star Trek and SF groups. It has continued to try to renew itself. In the face of the end of the Star Trek TV series, a world without a Star Trek movie for six years, a world without a meaningful Star Wars film after 2005, the club has sought to live out the virtues personified by Star Trek.
In November Linda Widener (still the club 1st officer after 12 years), Stephanie Rechtin, Rob Langenderfer and friends of the club Mike Schmitz, Karen Baumgartner, and Noah Baumgartner all went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One for the club’s 20th anniversary, and they went out to eat afterwards, being joined by Gary Pierce. Plans were discussed for the future such as a role-playing game session and other books that might be discussed in book discussions. The club may have been smaller than in years past, but its hopeful spirit continued to live on, ready to blaze a path of light through the galaxy.
The books that we have read/discussed at the Independence, KY library include:
War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (Apr. 2004)
Tunnel in the Sky by Robert Heinlein (May 2004)
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (June 2004)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (July 2004)
Venus by Ben Bova (Aug. 2004)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Sept. 2004)
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (Oct. 2004)
Myth Ink Link by Robert Aspirin (Nov. 2004)
Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke (Feb. 2005)
The books that we have read/discussed at the Kenton Co. Public Library in Covington:
Andre Norton, Witch World (Mar. 2005)
Frank Herbert, Dune (Apr. 2005)
Spider and Jeanne Robinson, Stardance (May 2005)
Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time (June 2005)
Roald Dahl, Mathilda (July 2005)
John Moore, Heroics for Beginners (Aug. 2005)
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (Sept. 2005)
Madeleine L'Engle, A Wind in the Door (Oct. 2005)
Jenny Nimmo, Midnight for Charlie Bone (Jan. 2006)
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Sept. 2007)
The books that we have read/discussed at Steph Rechtin's house:
Robert Heinlein, Have Space Suit Will Travel (June 2006 and Oct. 2006 - two discussions)
Octavia Butler, Dawn (Nov. 2006)
Octavia Butler, Adulthood Rites (Dec. 2006)
Octavia Butler, Imago (Jan. 2007)
Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief (Feb. 2007)
Wen Spencer, An Alien Taste (Apr. 2007)
T.H. White, The Once and Future King - first half (May 2007)
T.H. White, The Once and Future King - second half (June 2007)
Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn, Fallen Angels (July 2007)
Homer Hickam, Rocket Boys (also known as October Sky) (Aug. 2007)
The books that we have read/discussed at the Barnes and Nobles at Newport on the Levee:
A. E. Van Vogt, Slan (Nov. 2007)
John Ringo and Linda Evans, The Road to Damascus (Jan. 2008)
Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain (Feb. 2008)
Arthur Clarke, 2010: Odyssey Two (an informal discussion of the book was integrated into a panel some of us gave on 2001 and 2010 at Millennicon in Mar. 2008 but no formal discussion of the book has been held)
Bram Stoker, Dracula (May 2008)
Kaza Kinglsey, Erec Rex: The Dragon’s Eye (June 2008) – with Kaza present
Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle (July 2008)
Kaza Kingsley, Erec Rex: The Monsters of Otherness (Aug. 2008) – with Kaza present
Ken MacLeod, Learning the World (Oct. 2008)
Scott MacKay, Omega Sol (Nov. 2008)
Jules Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth (Feb. 2009)
Isaac Asimov, The Naked Sun (Mar. 2009, at Stephanie Rechtin’s Newport residence)
Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire (Apr. 2009)
The books that we have read/discussed at the main Kenton County Public Library in Covington:
Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (May 2009)
Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (again) (June 2009)
Robert Heinlein, The Door into Summer (July 2009)
Kaza Kingsley, Erec Rex: The Search for Truth (Aug. 2009) – with Kaza present
Alan Dean Foster, Star Trek and J.K. Rowling, The Tales of Beedle the Bard (Jan. 2010)
Christopher Bennett, Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Buried Age (Feb. 2010)
Orson Scott Card, Ender in Exile (Mar. 2010)
Patricia Biggs, Moon Called (May 2010)
Kim Stanley Robinson, Galileo’s Dream (July and September 2010)
Geoffrey Landis, Mars Crossing (October 2010)
