Category: Community Service (Page 1 of 2)

Virginia Aviation Museum

Much thanks to our donors for making this possible! With their help, we raised $1200 for the Virginia Aviation Museum.

The RavenCon “family” lost one of their own in 2009. Vice Chair John Jones and Promotions & Publicity Director/Swagmistress Cheryl Lynn Jones suffered a death in the family; Cheryl’s younger brother Kenneth James Williamson passed away after a short illness at the age of 41.

Kenneth J. Williamson (aka “Boomer” or “Ken-ken”), worked at the first RavenCon hotel, the Doubletree at the Richmond International Airport. His co-workers had never seen anything like a science fiction/fantasy/horror convention before, so, as their “go-to” guy, they asked him what was going on. He said, “Why don’t you ask my sister, she’s over there,” and introduced Cheryl to his crewmates. She answered the best she could even though she wasn’t a committee member yet. The next year John and Cheryl stayed at the Doubletree, and he told his co-workers that they would be there; the restaurant provided them with a fruit plate, the apples carved with the RavenCon logo on them. Boomer and his co-workers did their best to accommodate RavenCon—to this day the Doubletree is the standard to which we hold up other hotels.

Boomer loved trains, planes, automobiles, and teddy bears. He was a member of the USS Chesapeake, a chapter of Starfleet International. He would dress up as a giant teddy bear—Major Ursa—for Chesapeake recruiting functions. Kenneth was also an avid science fiction fan, having attended a few of the area Star Trek cons over the years—some of the Creation Cons in Richmond, Big “E” Con in Norfolk and Shore Leave in Hunt Valley, MD.

Boomer died at Memorial Regional Medical Center on July 29th, 2009. His parents requested that in lieu of flowers that donations be made to the Virginia Aviation Museum, one of his favorite places to go.

The RavenCon committee has selected the Virginia Aviation Museum as the recipient of the 2010 Charity Auction proceeds in his memory.

In 2016, the Virginia Aviation Museum shut its doors but its contents are being held by their parent company, the Science Museum of Virginia. The Aviation Museum’s SR-71 Blackbird is now on display at the Science Museum.

The Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia

In honor of the bicentennial of Poe’s birth, RavenCon designated the Edgar Allan Poe Museum as the recipient of the proceeds of RavenCon’s charity auction in 2009. After working with the Poe Museum for over 15 years, we once again made them the recipient of our Charity Auction in 2022. Much thanks to our donors for making this possible! With their help, we raised $800 for the Poe Museum in 2009 and $2200 in 2022.

About the Richmond Poe Museum:

Although Baltimore, Maryland claims him, Edgar Allan Poe spent most of his youth in Richmond. He also has Virginia connections in that he was a student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and stayed at Fort Monroe in Hampton during his short military career.

The Richmond Poe Museum is located on Main Street in the downtown area. “The Old Stone House” is the oldest building in the city. Poe did not live here, but would have seen this house, being that he lived a few blocks away, and his first job, at the Southern Literary Messenger, was also close by.

The museum hosts items from Poe’s life, manuscripts, letters, and memorabilia. Special exhibits throughout the year highlight his career.