A Short Biography: Ron Bookman, The Early Years

Ronald Westmoreland Bookman III was born October 5, 1962 in Bryan, Texas, the firstborn son of proud and loving parents Ronald Westmoreland Bookman Jr. and Sylvia Ideus Bookman. Ron’s first home was in the married student housing at A10Z Collegeview in College Station, Texas, home of Texas A&M University, where Ron’s father, like his father before him, was a student and graduated in spring 1963.

Following his father’s graduation, young Ron, like most children his age would do, packed up his family and moved to Houston, Texas and from there, on to Memphis, Tennessee, his moves closely following his dad’s career. While in Memphis, in April 1965, Ron’s brother Bill was born, and that was a cool thing. Although only two and a half years old at the time, to this very day Ron remembers going to the hospital to bring his new brother home for the first time. From Memphis, it was on to New Orleans and shortly thereafter to Dallas. Life was good and Ron grew as the years went by, continually broadening his horizons.

While living in his house on Lorwood in Dallas, he made good friends with his neighbor across the alley, David Cunningham. Together, they joined the Indian Guides and first learned to ride a motorcycle. He got a big black rabbit named Lamar, who was coolest rabbit you could have ever met.

Ron also got his first short wave radio receiver, his dad’s old Halicrafters. It was a bulky, grey receiver with lots of vacuum tubes. Its large semicircular dials glowed orange when it was on. While listening to stations from all over the world, Ron began to learn about electronics and radio wave propagation.

After the 1970-1971 school year was over, the Bookman family moved a few miles to new digs on Bondstone, also in Dallas. The house there was a split-level that had a basement with pool table in it, a cool pool with raised stone sides and a waterfall at the deep end and a small bamboo forest behind that.

It was there that Ron’s decisiveness in an emergency first showed itself. His cousin David, a toddler at the time, had floated off the pool steps while the adults had looked away for a moment. On seeing this, without a moment’s hesitation, Ron dove in and pulled his cousin to safety.

During the summer 1971, with the third grade behind him, Ron left his parents and brother behind, hopped a plane from Dallas, and went to visit his grandparents, then living in Anchorage, Alaska. This was a cool and exciting adventure for Ron. Some of the many and varied things he did were flying in to Upper Russian Lake (where there is an abundance of mosquitoes and porcupines) by float plane for a week-long camping trip and then flying back out the same way, going sledding on a glacier, and visiting Mt McKinley National Park. He returned home with a ton of Legos.

The beginning of the new 1972-1973 school year brought the fourth grade and a new home off FM 1960 in Harris County, Texas just outside of Houston. The hangar for the Goodyear blimp was only a short distance away. There was also a creek nearby where he liked to go explore with his trusty BB gun. Exploring new houses still under construction was fun as well.

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