by Jane Houston
I attended the 75th Anniversary Dinner and Awards meeting of the Eastbay Astronomical Society Saturday night, March 6th. It was a remarkable evening - an evening starring and recognizing some special women.
Carolyn Shoemaker gave the main address. This was the first time she presented a talk about her husband Gene since his death in July 1997. There were nearly 100 people in attendance at the San Lorenzo Community Church. I think Carolyn talked to every single person there. Gracious, warm and friendly before the talk, during and after - she presented the life of Gene in slides. The first slide was Gene as an 18 year old graduate of Cal Tech. Wedding pictures and family pictures were sprinkled among the slides depicting his geology work, his work for the Apollo missions, their joint comet discovery work , and their annual treks to Australia to research impact craters. The old continental crust of Australia was a great place to look for impact craters, and they loved it there.
Slides of the raft known as the "Good Ship Sinkwell" and it's trip down the Colorado River or the trips on the Green River reaffirmed the love and zest for life that Gene had. "He was not a unaformatarian." "He was interested in catastropies.", Carolyn told us. The talk ended with the song sung at his retirement dinner - the audience was laughing outward, to hide the sadness each felt at the loss of someone very few at the dinner knew personally but that we all sort of knew through his public life. Carolyn said that Gene didn't really retire, but that he kept doing the projects he wanted to, but that he didn't have to write funding proposals any more. A question was asked about Gene's opinion of the Movie Contact, which both Gene and Carolyn acted as one day science advisors. She grimaced and said that it was a good thing that Gene never saw the movie! The last question was about the possibility of a crater on the moon being named after Gene. Carolyn told us that she and their children looked at lunar maps and thought a crater at the south pole would be nice - that Gene was certain water ice would be discovered there. But that they thought that it woud be nice to see where the Lunar Prospector lands - Gene's ashes are aboard that spacecraft - and where ever it lands, to find a crater nearby and name it after Gene Shoemaker.
The other remarkable women honored at the awards dinner was Denni Medlock. Denni was given the prestigious Helen Pillans Award for her service to amateur astronomy. Denni assisted Helen Pillans and the students from Mills college and helping them to look through the Chabot telescope back in the sixties and severties. .Not only was Denni active in the founding of the AANC, Fremont Peak Observatory Association, the Group 70 project, she was active in the SJAA, in addition to her involvment with the Chabot Telescope Makers workshop since the 1960's. Even more remarkable than her long time accomplishments was her acceptance talk. She talked about being a teenager in a group of 20 who spent lots of time at the telescope at Chabot Observatory starting when she was just 18 years old. She credited the past teachers at Chabot Observatory, Kingsley Wightman and current long time Chabot Telescope Makers workshop leader Paul Zurakowski for their inspiration in her life. Her plea to the directors of the new Chabot Observatory and Science Center not to lock the observatory doors on kids - and not to charge them money for using the telescopes was poignant and direct. She cited the accomplishments of the group of 20 kids who hung around Chabot in the sixties. Four went on to become renowned professionals in the telescope optics field, others became planetarium directors, teachers and leaders in their fields. It was a remarkable plea from a remarkable women. Congratulations Denni!
And best wishes to the EAS for a great next 75 years. Carter Roberts, Don Stone, Dave Rodriques, and countless others put alot of work into presenting and honoring the history of this club, showing many ancient club bulletins, lists of speakers going back 75 years and other historical material and photos.