The following article appeared in the June 2006 issue of the CUAS newsletter Clear Skies and covers the first 20 years of club history.

By David C. Leake

After doing this newsletter since the club’s inception in 1986, I’m hoping you’ll grant me a little space to do a little reminiscing. The club will be 20-years-old this July. And I take my hat off to Mike Rosenberger and John Kouka for being the only members (to my knowledge) who have stuck around for the full twenty! In fact, both had a big role in the formation of the club. For the sake of all the new members, lets turn back the clock . . .

We can thank Halley’s Comet for the Champaign-Urbana Astronomical Society. Halley, of course, came back in 1985/1986 and the public was psyched. Halley was even a guest on Ted Koppel’s Nightline program. But we all knew that Halley would be brightest when it was on the other side of the Sun and the public needed to be prepared that we wouldn’t see it as bright as expected. I still have people to this day tell me, Man, that Halley’s Comet sure bombed! So a six week class was offered through the Champaign Park District called Basic Astronomy to teach people about telescopes, the sky, Messier objects, and how to tackle Halley’s. The class was held in the evenings at the Southside Recreation Center, now Southside Elementary School. Yes, I was the teacher, but I was about as green as you can get. John Kouka and his son Eric were in the first class. Several sessions were offered and then a second class ingeniously called Astronomy II was developed.

Mr. Kouka and some of his classmates wanted more than just the six weeks, especially if the observing session for the class was clouded out. I directed them to the University of Illinois Astronomical Society, where I had served as an officer while in college, 3-4 years previous. No one wanted to drive on campus at night, though, which brought up the idea of a townie astronomy club. Add to this, some of the UI clubs had come under fire because they were receiving university funds but well over 3/4 of the members weren’t students.

As one of the Basic Astronomy classes ended, the door opened and in walked this bearded gentleman. I think I had seen him before at some of the UIAS meetings. He introduced himself as Mike Rosenberger. Mike told me he was an amateur astronomer who built a roll-off observatory on his farm and he wrote out directions and told me to come out sometime. I still have those directions! And I did drive out there in the daytime so I wouldn’t get lost. It was much nicer at night, of course. This was the beginning of a 20-year-friendship that I cherish to this day . . . . but don’t tell him that! ;-)

While this union could be considered the roots of CUAS, I give all the credit to those in the classes for pushing this through. And push, they did! On March 24, 1986, I wrote a proposal to Jana Brown-Kulikowski at the park district proposing a group called CUAS that would meet twice a month at Southside. The proposal was approved and a letter was sent on July 2 to everyone who had taken the astronomy classes. An organizational meeting was held on July 24 at 7pm where we discussed name, logo, a newsletter, mission, objectives, and membership dues (which were initially set at $5 per person). With the lack of a treasury, the park district set-up an activity account for us.

We ran a few events that first year. On October 24, we sent out fliers to our first cookout and observing session at Robeson Park. Member Stan Woefle ran off some really cheesy, hand-drawn brochures for us, and a logo contest was won by Miss Rena Higgins . . . . . . who would go on to become Rena Leake in two years (but that wasn’t why she won!). By October 30 of 1986, we had $172 in the treasury and a donation of $200 let us buy some items like rotating star wheels and backyard astronomy guides to sell. At the end of 1986, we elected our first set of officers.

In 1987, a membership roster lists 45 members. On May 9, we did our first National Astronomy Day exhibit at Lincoln Square Mall with telescopes on display, posters, and information on CUAS, UIAS, Parkland College and the L-5 Society. Talks were given in a storefront by Jim Kaler, Dave Linton (with a planetarium preview), Mike Svec (a buyer’s guide to telescopes), and me (May evening skies). In July, Dave Linton gave us a sneak peak inside the new Staerkel Planetarium. It would open in October of 1987 and the officers at the time put a letter into the Halley’s Comet time capsule that’s buried outside the planetarium doors to the people of 2061. The next year, the observatory project began . . . . literally as a joke . . . but that’s for another column.

As newsletter editor, I’ve worked for a number of presidents in 20 years. The first issue wasn’t called Clear Skies, though. In July, 1986 it was called Things are Looking Up! and featured a horrible hand-drawn skyline of Champaign as see from the south. By the end of the first year, we graduated to press type . . . basically stick-on letters. Remember . . . no computers . . for the average Joe anyway. It was typed front to back on a typewriter. I copied it so it was double-sided on my work Xerox machine (shhhh!) and gave a master copy to Paul Ellis, Jana Brown’s replacement as program director, who duplicated it on an old mimeograph machine. Eventually, I got that job. What a pain! Each page took about 3-4 minutes to run and many had to be redone due to cosmic rays or something, in the machine. It had a mind of its own. One machine made the carbons and another did the duplication. Then we had to double-side it and IF the pages stuck, you might be starting from scratch! It could have taken over an hour to duplicate.

My graphics skills were very limited, so we did a lot of cutting and pasting. That changed in 1989 when member Bob Januzik, with fancy computer in hand, volunteered to take my goofy words and make them look good. He also changed the name to Clear Skies, which was intended to be a joke. Clear skies in Illinois? Yeah, right. Bob put some very cool graphics in the newsletter (like the bottom of a page being a limb of the Moon) but the mimeograph machine hated it! We eventually graduated to a Risograph, which was a cross between a copy machine and a mimeograph. One machine did both things and quicker. You still held your breath, though. Today we use a regular copy machine that will doubleside & collate.

Here are the people who have done president’s messages over the years. I thank you profusely for your time, your patience, and your dedication . . . except for the first guy . . . he was never on time:

If you’d like more of this history stuff, come to the July meeting. We’ll show some old photos and I’ll tell you about the Secret Service and the observing session that almost wasn’t!

—Dave Leake