Sunday afternoon at the annual St. Baldrick’s hair shaving event, we had the great pleasure of meeting members of the 501st Wisconsin Garrison, the Rebel Legion, the Mandalorian Mercs: Cin’ciri Verda and the Galactic Academy.
I, like every other kid my age, saw Star Wars in the theater when it first came out, during the summer of 1977. I liked it so much I saw it again. “Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”
In the intervening years, though, I lost track of my heroes. I popped back into the theater every now and again to check in, but I missed most of the three trilogies.
I vowed to start from the beginning and work my way through them this summer. This project, of course, begs the question, where is the beginning of the series? Does one start historically with the first three movies that eventually became the middle trilogy? Or, should I begin with the prequel trilogy?
I should have thought of that question Sunday afternoon as storm troopers, BB-8, Jango Fett, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, Rey, Mandalorian Mercs and a very cute porg roamed the St. Mary’s Springs gym.
I had a blast meeting and photographing all of the characters, my first live experience with cosplay. The groups make appearances throughout the Valley. In fact. the 501st likes to say they’re “bad guys doing good.”
You can check out their schedules on their social media pages to see them live.
In the meantime, please enjoy these photos. I’ll do my best to identify the characters. (Update: Many thanks to my son Charlie who helped identify several of these characters via email.)
