Most recent items listed first.
July 22, 2011, Stetson is no longer with
us
Stetson was born October 15, 1998 and left this world July 22, 2011, living to
the ripe old age of 12 Years and 9 Months. He led a charmed life, achieving
notoriety with an extensive bag of tricks, chief among these being his rocket
launching antics which landed him in dozens of stories in papers, magazines and
even on TV. The TV coverage and a few of his rocket vids are posted at
www.youtube.com/robertlbyrd, or browse this web site.
But Stetson never let the fame go to his head, and was a sweetheart till the
end. We thank God for the time he was in our lives. Stetson was one of God's
finest creations and brought an immeasurable amount of joy into our lives.
This tribute video
http://tinyurl.com/4xbrjtb starts at the beginning and follows a loose
chronology of Stetsons very full life, ending up with the new Sheltie puppy
named Samson who Stetson watched over and tutored for the last 7 months of his
life. Samson picked up many of Stetsons behaviors, so he lives on in Samson, who
has already stepped into Stetson's role of watching over and loving us in that
special way which only Shelties can.
Be forewarned, if you knew Stetson, this video will make
you cry.
November 9th 2008: Stetson makes the Baytown Sun a third
time!
Tara Sullivan of the Baytown Sun met Stetson at this years Neighborhood Night
Out which we usually host at our home. She was intrigued by Stetson and wanted
to do another story on him. So on Sunday November 2nd we headed out to Crosby
for another shoot.
November 24th 2002: WB39 Story Aires
The news coverage of Stetson was moved to
the 24th. I captured it and posted the full story here
here on the videos page.
November 2nd 2002: WB39 does a film shoot
Stetson has hit the big time. WB39 shot the footage today for a news story
scheduled to run November 21st at 9pm on the local TV station, channel 39.
November 1st 2002: Stetson gets a Publicist
Kate Allen
of Harrison & Shriftman
in New
York volunteers to be Stetson's publicist. Look out Letterman, Stetsons on
his way...
November 1st 2002: Stetson makes the Baytown Sun a
second time
Allyson Gonzalez wrote another story about Stetson, and announced the WB39
shoot.
August 2002: Stetson Goes to
NARAM 44
NARAM is the annual weeklong event put on by the
National Association of Rocketry. Stetson, my wife Susan, and I drove
to McGregor Texas for this event.
August 2002: Second Baptist Carnival
Stetson was invited to do a demonstration launch at the Annual Second Baptist
Carnival in Baytown. It was raining so I did not take launch photos.
There were close to 200 people in and out of the carnival. Surely
someone took some photos. If you have any please send me an
e-mail.
The rain however did not dampen Stetsons spirits, he launched as
enthusiastically as ever. We did lose 3 rockets in the trees, 2 of which
were recovered a couple of days later with the help of Mark Hall, the host.
July 2002:
Stetsons first comic Strip
Stetson was featured in the Wonder Moose comic strip for the Cap Squadron July
Newsletter. Thanks to Mark Sinicki for sending the comic strip artwork.
(Hint, right click the link and save as for best results.)
July 2002: Stetson Launches for Boy Scout Troop 404
Stetson does exhibition launch for Boy Scout Troop 404 during their
Rocketry Program. Here is a link to the
Troop 404 web site.
June 2002: Stetson Makes the Front Page of the Baytown Sun
The Baytown Sun (Stetson's home town newspaper) features him in a front page article on
Friday, June 31st 2002. Austin
Kinghorn interviewed Stetson and wrote a great article.
March 2002: Stetson Featured in March/April Issue of Sport Rocketry
Magazine
Stetson was featured in a 5 page article in the March/April issue of
Sport Rocketry
Magazine. You can download the
entire article here. Be
aware it is a 7 meg file with all of the graphics included. Here is a smaller
34.5k text only
version. Stetson is getting a lot of fan mail since the article, but
it has not gone to his head. He is still the same old sweetheart of a pup.
August 2001: Stetson On the Internet
I originally
posted Stetson's story on a news group, and that is what started all the
interest. You can follow the threads at
rec.models.rockets
