Shannon (Wikle) Sudderth



One night in Paul & Lib Thompson's trailer, Paul suggested the possibility of a gaming-only con: cheap to put on, instant help from many people for GMs, and no need for special guests. We went from there, using Cerebral Hobbies, which had just opened up, and the many local BBSs that were around along with Forbidden. I was a grad student at the time and had an office in Dey Hall so we got our dates, persuaded the secretaries of Dey & Murphy that the buildings would still be standing after the weekend, and Bob Burchette and I made one huge trip to Sam's with my parents' card to get concessions supplies.

I had gotten everything there the first night to set up except for some signs. Trying to get back to my apartment in major traffic was a nightmare in the first place, and the construction on 54 didn't help. It really didn't help when I rear-ended the jeep in front of me on an entrance ramp and Carrboro's finest took an hour to get there to write up the report. The car made it to the apartment OK, but with a loose hood, I wasn't about to drive it again until it could be fixed. My roommate at the time and her date dropped me back on campus, where Richard Taylor consoled me that I was only upholding a fine Chimera tradition, the attendees were swamping the place, and Bob bit my head off for disappearing and I bit back (we managed to apologize to each other later).

I can't remember for sure at the moment if it was Friday or Saturday, but I think it was around midnight Friday when I realized that:
(1) I was practically alone except for the few gamers left,
(2) I had no way of getting back to the apartment, and
(3) since we were based in Murphy rather than Dey, I had no immediate way of locking up the money, supplies, & refreshments.


At some point, Rob Martinek (acting Chimera president with Dykki Settle's abdication) realized the same thing and someone else brought a sleeping bag & a blanket or two over from his dorm room for us. Of course we didn't get much sleep, we babbled about nonsensical things, and a campus security guard woke us up around 7am, wanting to know who we were and what was going on. He had to radio in to verify that the con was a real event. Bob took his turn the next night, but he managed to get into a teacher's lounge and slept on a couch with the money box.

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