(left to right: Richard Blackman, Kathy Hershey with Star, and Audrey
Blackman)
This picture was kindly donated by 'Stillframes Photography' of Columbus
The costumes worn by Richard and Audrey, along with Kathy's hat, were made by Audrey.
Friday the 20th July, 2007, the eve of J. K. Rawling's last book in the Harry Potter series; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There were parties going on all over town culminating in the books release at midnight.
We were at the Commons Mall in an empty store by Viewpoint Books. Kathy Hershey with my wife, Audrey, and I in support. We started at 9pm and over the course of 2 1/2 hours we went through our 'show and tell' 11 times. And that's not easy, standing and going through the whole spiel that many times when it is way past my bedtime :) But it was well worth it, there was only room for around 25 people at a time in the small space we had, but as soon as we finished one show, the room would empty and fill up again just as quickly. There was some concern that we might have had a problem with people crowding us and trying to touch the birds or sticking their fingers where they would be bird food but everyone was great and we didn't have a single bit of trouble.
Kathy presented two large owls, Obie a Barred owl and Star a Great Horned owl. And I worked with the little guys; Hootie, an Eastern Screech Owl and Trilliam an American Kestrel. We took turns with the birds as Audrey handled crowd control and took the pictures displayed left. Audrey had been preparing for this for some time and did a fantastic job of making our costumes along with Kathy's hat.
Richard
