Mr. Bishop ran this club out of Hawaii, and, at its height, it boasted many members across the U.S. and all over the world. The group operated under their own sporting code - the 'Gold Book', independent of that used by the NAR.
After joining, I happened to mention to Mr. Bishop that I had mechanical drafting experience. I was readily appointed as the 'plans editor' for the Starlords new letter, The Stellar Winds. I soon received from Mr. Bishop a large envelope full of rocket plans submitted by various Starlords members for publication. It was my job to make pretty drawings of them to send back and be printed in the news letter.
Perhaps the best part of being a Starlord was in the opportunity to correspond with model rocketeers from around the globe. One of the best acquaintances I made through the group was with Mr. Herb Desind - 'Mr. Cineroc' himself! The ensuing friendship will be the subject of a future blog post.
This is a 'fuzzy' picture of my old Estes Spaceman model rocket, painted in the likeness of the Starlord mascot. The inscription around the model's base reads 'Starlords International Association of Rocketry'.
And a real, honest-to-goodness Starlords membership ID card!
Fun times!
Hey Ed,
ReplyDeleteYour post piqued my curiosity, so I looked up Starlords/Dennis Bishop since I live in Hawaii. Stellar Winds was being put out as recently as 2012 until Mr. Bishop was struck by a car and nearly killed in Rosamond, CA. Last update from his brother 4 years ago says that he was being transferred to a long term care facility.
Have you heard anything recently on his status? Has he recovered, stayed the same, or sadly, passed on?
Something interesting I found was that one post listed the ranking members of Starlord and the second in command was one Manuel Mejia of Astatula, FLA. I think this is Chris Michealsson's friend , the one with the Pringles rocket recently featured on his website. Anyway, cheers!
Hi, geezer,
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen or heard any recent news about Dennis. Maybe Mr. Mejia would have some insight.