BLACKSBURG, Va., April 1, 2005 – Homer Hickam, acclaimed author of several best-selling non-fiction books and an alumnus of Virginia Tech and the corps of cadets, will be in Blacksburg to sign copies of his latest novel, The Ambassador’s Son, and to join the corps of cadets on their semi-annual 13-mile Caldwell March.
Hickam, a 1964 graduate of Virginia Tech with a bachelor's in industrial engineering, will be at the Easy Chair bookstore at 101 S. Main St. (corner of Roanoke St. and S. Main St.) at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 8, to sign copes of his books, which include the historical non-fiction Torpedo Junction (1989) and Rocket Boys (1998), and a number of novels, including Back to the Moon (1999), The Coalwood Way (2000), Sky of Stone (2001), and The Keeper’s Son (2003).
The following day, Saturday, April 9, Hickam will participate with the corps of cadets as they conduct a grueling 13-mike trek, which begins just outside Caldwell Fields at about 9 a.m.; proceeds over Brush Mountain; and culminates on the Virginia Tech main campus at around 4:30 p.m. The corps of cadets' class of 2009, their training cadre, and the commandant’s staff — a total force of some 330 — will take part in the exercise. Hickam is participating with the marchers this year as a tangible expression of his continuing support of the corps and its programs, and to demonstrate a spirit of camaraderie among corps members that transcends generations.
Hickam’s books have earned widespread critical and public acclaim. His Rocket Boys novel, which documented Hickam’s life in the small town of Coalwood, W.V., became a classic that has been translated into eight languages. The book also became the basis for the critically acclaimed film, October Sky, released in 1999. The print version of Rocket Boys was subsequently re-released bearing that same title, October Sky, and it attained No. 1 ranking on The New York Times best-seller list.
Hickam’s most recent work, The Ambassador’s Son, is set in the Solomon Islands during World War II. The principal character is Josh Thurlow, who first appeared in The Keeper’s Son. In something of an intriguing twist, other characters in this fictional work include a young John Fitzgerald Kennedy and a young Richard M. Nixon — both characters based largely on their real-life counterparts.
After completing his studies at Virginia Tech, Hickam received a commission in the U.S. Army and served with the Fourth Infantry Division in the Vietnam War. Following six years of active service, where he attained the rank of captain, Hickam began a civilian career as an engineer with the U.S. Army Missile Command and later worked with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at Marshall Space Flight Center, where he was involved with spacecraft design and crew training. But his first love was writing — a passion he developed shortly after completing his tour in Vietnam — and his earliest writings about scuba diving adventures, published in a variety of magazines, soon gave way to more exhaustive book-length projects.
Still an avid scuba diver, and more recently harboring a growing interest in paleontology, Hickam and his wife, Linda Terry Hickam, split their time between a home in Alabama and another in the Virgin Islands.