Rocket Boys Festival ends two-decade run in West Virginia

BECKLEY, W.Va. (AP) - A festival that celebrates West Virginia’s Rocket Boys has ended its two-decade run.

Author and former NASA engineer Homer Hickam tells news outlets that the Rocket Boys Festival which ended Saturday in Beckley was the last one.

The festival had moved to Beckley in 2012 after it was held since 1999 in Coalwood in McDowell County.

The festival celebrated the three years from 1957 to 1960 when Hickam and his friends launched rockets while in high school. They eventually won a national science fair.

Hickam’s novel, “Rocket Boys,” is about those experiences and growing up in Coalwood. The book was adapted into the 1999 movie “October Sky.”