The history of Stone Hill is shrouded in mystery.
"Mostly it's a mystery as to who will write these pages".
Ok, it's not that bad. A lot of club members know a lot about how it started and what we've done over the years. Here you will find sub-pages that will be added as folks write down what they can recall, and dig out old photographs. Below that, you will find the Origin Story of the Stone Hill Science Fiction Association.
The Origin of The Stone Hill Science Fiction Association as told by Ann Morris
1978:
It was a dark and stormy night.
Okay, it wasn't stormy but it was dark and it was night.
Kendall (Morris) and I (Ann) were coming home from some movie or other and as we were riding along, Kendall suddenly popped, "You should start a science fiction club."
"Why?" I queried back. "So, you'll have one to go to?" I said answering my own question with a question.
"Yes."
"Why don't we try to find ones that already exist and join one of them?"
"Okay."
Well, we found a couple of local clubs by checking with the public library and at a comic shop and we gave them a try. They were in their death throes. Since the members were all high school students and other young, unsettled people, the membership waned when new schools and new career opportunities appeared on the scene. We were left with starting a club of our own, after all.
At Eisenhower Junior High School, where Kendall taught math, there was a science teacher named Ruth Sweberg who liked science fiction and was willing to help start a group.
When it was just the two of us, it was a discussion. Three made it a conspiracy. We were on our way. This was in September or October of 1978.
In November, over Thanksgiving weekend, there was a convention in Orlando called Tropicon. (This is not related to the Tropicon that was run by the South Florida Science Fiction Society.) A lady named Adrienne Hayworth and her parents hosted it. They had hosted Orangecon in the spring, which Kendall and I had attended and enjoyed, so we signed up to attend.
Now, you may be thinking that Thanksgiving is not a good time for a convention and you would be right. There were only 10 people who attended. There was me, Kendall, our son, Cyndy Broadwater, Dale Shuman, Glen "OZ" Oswald, Linda Gerhart and her sister (whose first name is totally escaping me now), some poor fellow from Ohio whom we dissuaded from spray painting his face silver for the costume contest, Adrienne and her mom.
We made the best of it and had a fun weekend talking SF and letting our fan selves hang out. One memorable thing we did was pile into Kendall's and my hotel room on Friday night to watch "Quark."
Upon finding out that OZ (he prefers this to Glen) and Cyndy lived in Lakeland and Tampa respectively, I asked if they'd be interested in starting a SF club. They both were all for it. I told them that I'd be getting in touch with them after the New Year to get together. I'm sure they thought it would never happen.
When Kendall told Ruth (his science teacher friend) that we had some interested people, she offered to host the first meeting at her apartment on Bayshore Drive. I sent snail mail notices (we were still in the pre home PC days then) and we gathered at Ruth's apartment on January 18, 1979.
In attendance were Ruth, Kendall, me, our son Kendall (who was only 4), Dale Shuman (long time friend of ours), Cyndy, Rex Tabor (Cyndy's sweetie), Kathy Saunders (a friend of Cyndy's), OZ, and David Bennett (OZ's friend from a Lakeland SF club).
We decided to meet each month from then on. We told friends and I put out notices at bookstores about the group and we gained members at each meeting. By the third meeting we decided on the name for the club. David Bennett suggested that we use the name the Stone Hill Science Fiction Association because the book FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON uses Tampa Town as the location from which the rocket is launched. It also mentions the Alifia River and David suggested that since Kendall and I had gotten this very scary ball rolling and we lived near the Alifia River, the name was even more appropriate for us.
There was unanimous approval and we've been marked as Stone Hill ever since.
This is where I will end my account of the origin of the species, uh, Stone Hill.
If I have made mistakes in the recounting of these events, please let me know. It was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
Now, it's someone else's turn to tell more of the History of Stone Hill.
