UPDATE: I GOT BAD INFORMATION! ROBIN J. NAKKULA IS TOTALLY ALIVE! HURRAY!!!!! SEE COMMENTS BELOW!
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, SHE GETS TO SEE ALL THE NICE THINGS I WOULD SAY IN A EULOGY, WITHOUT THE INCONVENIENCE OF BEING DEAD!!!!
ROBIN IS AWESOME AND ALIVE!
Yesterday, one of my filk friends told me that the Columbus filker Robin Nakkula had passed away. Of your goodness, please pray for her soul.
Robin was a scientist by trade, and was a gifted lab technician and lab manager. She did medical and biological research at Ohio State and at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital. She is credited on a huge number of scientific papers. Other papers credited her internally for recordkeeping, “setting the standard for reproducible experiments,” “keeping the lab from being shut down,” “making the histones,” and generally keeping younger students on the straight and narrow.
She also had at least one published story, “State Road,” in Mike Resnick’s 1993 anthology Christmas Ghosts, which was co-written with her husband.
She loved lab rats, and had a long term personal project to breed natural colorations back into lab rat strains without losing their intelligence or other favorable qualities of white lab rats. She also trained and made clean, gentle pets of many generations of these lab rats in her own home.
She also participated in the Central Ohio group for Irish culture, the Shamrock Club of Columbus, and in her local neighborhood group.
She had a sharp sense of humor, sometimes mild and sometimes cutting. Many of her songs were about the lighter side of science, particularly biology. But she also tended to look out for younger filkers and help them, and she had a particular kind concern for people experiencing depression or alienation from fandom. I know she contacted me when she was worried about me, and I wish I could have done more for her. I saw her check in at NASFiC and sent her a shoutout, but we did not get to talk.
She was married for twenty-five years to Alan Dormire; their anniversary was just a few weeks back.
St. Gertrude of Nivelles, patron saint of rats, pray for her!
And may He Whose eye is on the sparrow’s fall be gentle with the soul of our friend.
“The Ethology Song (R and K Selective)”
Songs on Captain Wayne’s Mad Music Show: “The Android”, “Biotech Fantasy”, “Something Lingers in the Fridge”, and “You Never Seem to Listen to Me”.
I was always fond of her song “Asteroid Ore”, a spacemining ballad to the tune of “Red Iron Ore.” I gather that she wrote a Zenna Henderson song that I never got to hear.
UPDATE: ROBIN IS STILL ALIVE!
UPDATE: Now the bad news. Naomi Pardue, who wrote “My Thousand Closest Friends” and many other songs, did pass away, very suddenly. And that is a real kick in the pants, because she was a very sweet person. Also she was a librarian, which is practically holy.
We also lost Bob Laurent, the founder of Wail Songs, Interfilk, and Consonance, but he had been fighting brain cancer for a year.
So please pray for their souls instead. I know a lot of filkers will have remembered them on Rosh Hashana. And please remember them on All Souls Day when you’re trying for that partial or plenary indulgence. We are here to help one another and serve the Lord.
The current episode of FilkCast is dedicated to Naomi Pardue and Bob Laurent.