Hickam delights young fans

BOUNTIFUL — As the author strode toward a model rocket launching range set up on the junior high school's playing field, students yelled, "I love you, Homer Hickam!" and "Hickam for president!"

That was typical of the ecstatic reception enjoyed by the author of popular books like "Rocket Boys" and "The Coalwood Way" when he visited Bountiful Junior High on March 9.

Hickam, who lives with his wife, Linda, in Huntsville, Ala., also was scheduled to speak later in the day at Davis High School.

During an assembly, he beamed over the presentation of science achievement awards to four eighth-graders (three girls and one boy). Then Hickam and the students headed outdoors where they watched the launch of several rockets. The models were built by students at the school and members of the Utah Rocket Club.

Hickam's most famous book is "Rocket Boys," which details growing up in a small coal-mining town of Coalwood, W.Va. As also shown in the film made from the book, "October Sky," rocketry experiments by the young Hickam and his friends became the doorway to a college education and a better life.

Eventually, he became a NASA engineer and the payload training chief for the International Space Station. Now retired from the space agency, he is one of the country's best-known authors.

Students at Bountiful Junior High are especially familiar with his work because for years eighth-graders there have been studying "Rocket Boys" and the film.

During the assembly, the 100 Percent for Kids Credit Union Education Federation presented a $4,988 donation to the Davis School District. The money will be used to purchase 190 copies of "Rocket Boys" and 77 copies of the movie, to be used in a program set up throughout the Davis School District, "Davis Reads."

"I'm not going to talk long because I want to go see rockets launched, and I know you do, too," Hickam told students sitting on the floor of the girls' gym.

"It's just wonderful for an author to be accepted by young people." Although "Rocket Boys" is not a children's book, it has a valuable lesson for students — the importance of higher education.

Hickam noted that he lived in Utah in the past. He was stationed at Dugway Proving Ground as a lieutenant in the Army, and he took classes at Brigham Young University.

"I love this state," he said. "I always have. I love the people of Utah."