NAR 60 Year Reunion, Part 3 - The OddRoc Master Himself

While making another circuit of the meeting room floor early in the event, I came across one of the display tables on which some new items had appeared....

 

And I knew exactly who had put them there.

I approached the man standing near the table with his back toward me.

"Ahem", I said, "These strange rockets look like they just might be the work of Randall Redd!"

Randall turned and saw me.

A happy reunion ensued.

Randall had been one of the Utah rocketeers from the old WARP section that drove out to Colorado every August from 1980-1983 to participate in the HOTROC (Heart of the Rockies) regional meets hosted by ROMAR of Colorado Springs.

Randall and I kept up letter correspondence well up into the late 1980s, even though I had exited model rocketry by that time.  He and his wife, Cathy, stopped by my home to visit on any occasion they were passing through Colorado Springs while traveling on vacations.

I lost touch with Randall until I became a BAR in 2016.  I looked him up and got into contact with him again, and was delighted to learn that he was still flying model rockets out on the Salt Flats with the current NAR section in Salt Lake City, UROC.

When I learned about this reunion, I shot an email to Randall to see if he was coming out here to NARAM 60.  He replied that he was, and a short while later, I was again delighted to note that he and Cathy were registered for the re-union!  

This is a picture of Randall and Cathy at the reunion.  Randall is holding the front page of a Colorado Springs newspaper feature on HOTROC-2, published in August, 1981.  The full page cover photo shows Randall hooking up his Class C Egglofter for flight!  I had brought this along to present to him, knowing he would be tickled by it.

Here's a shot of Randall and me...

Randall has cited me as the inspiration for his getting interested in building and flying Oddrocs.

How did I earn that dubious distinction?

Being the CD of some of the HOTROC regionals, I had introduced and scheduled Oddroc as an unofficial contest event. It quickly became one of the more popular and anticipated features of the meets. Randall took hold of it and never looked back. We always looked forward to seeing what kind of new contraption Randall would bring along to fly every year at HOTROC!

He never disappointed!