OVNIcon is a one-day, 80s-style sci-fi convention celebrating speculative narratives in literature, the arts, and gaming. In addition, our programming will highlight Oklahoma’s numerous connections -- and important contributions -- to history, popular culture, and scientific inquiry. Organized by founding members of CPHS' original science and science fiction club OVNI, this event is not officially affiliated with the Sand Springs School System, but all ticket sale profits will be donated to the arts and sciences programs at Charles Page High School.
Larry Nemecek
Author / Documentarian / Podcaster
Author of the classic Star Trek: Next Generation Companion and Star Trek: Stellar Cartography maps/book set, Okie ex-pat Larry “Dr. Trek” Nemecek now takes global Trek fans backstage every month under his Trekland banner with the pioneering PORTAL 47 deep-dive live/online insider package, plus over 200 weekly visits as host of THE TREK FILES from Roddenberry Podcasts. Larry also hosts his Trekland Tuesdays LIVE each week since 2017 on his YouTube channel and leads customized day tours of LA Trek’s on-location film sites for fans as TREKLAND TREKS. Larry’s documentary THE CON OF WRATH -- filmed with fellow OVNIcon guest Neal Hallford -- is in post-production.
PANELS
"Ad Astra Per Oklahomam"
"The Road To The Con of Wrath"
J.M. Linkhart
Author / Podcaster
J. M. Linkhart is a fantasy writer and co-founder of Goblin Booth Productions, a small multi-media studio based in Oklahoma. Her debut novel First-Degree Magic received a Kirkus starred review. She is also the writer, editor, and primary voice actress of The Harrowing of Minerva Damson, an audio-drama podcast set in the same universe as her novel. When not writing or recording one of the many podcasts she produces, you may find her reading about her latest historical hyperfixation or rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the umpteenth time.
PANELS
"Crafting Fantastical Narratives"
SIGNINGS
"First-Degree Magic"
PANELS
"Legends of the Sooner State"
SIGNINGS
"The Victory of Greenwood"
"A Kid's Book About the Tulsa Race Massacre"
Carlos Moreno
Author / Graphic Designer
Carlos Moreno is the author of The Victory of Greenwood and A Kid's Book About the Tulsa Race Massacre, two groundbreaking works which have shed new light on the contributions that Black Tulsans have made to Oklahoma history. Carlos is a community engagement strategist and civic hacker, helping purpose-driven organizations with data collection, qualitative research, and creating feedback loops for working collaboratively. Carlos leverages his 25 years experience in marketing, design-thinking and entrepreneurship to create civic technology that improves grassroots collaboration. He is also a highly active member of his community, serving on the board of Tri City Collective — building community through creativity, educational programs, and shared history, the Urban Coders Guild — which teaches programming skills to disadvantaged youth, and the World Stage Theatre Company.
Steve Garrett
Podcaster / Historian
Steve is the host of Within The Realm, a folksy and down to earth podcast that shines a spotlight on the sometimes forgotten people, events, myths, and cultural influences that shaped Oklahoma's colorful history. Born in Stilwell, Oklahoma, he's led a wide and varied career, starting off as teenaged writer and cartoonist for the Stilwell Democrat Journal, and then later went on to become a musician, a student of history, and a political activist. One of his areas of specialty has been speaking about the history of "giraffe house" architecture, a style that's unique to Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas. Today Steve serves as a city administrator for the City of Plattsburg, Missouri, and provides consulting services to assist smaller communities find the resources they need to better serve their citizens.
PANELS
"Legends of the Sooner State"
PANELS
"Crafting Fantastical Narratives"
"Indigenous Representation In
Pop Culture"
SIGNINGS
"Man Made Monsters"
"The Art Thieves"
Andrea L. Rogers
Author
Andrea L. Rogers is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, and is the author of the award-winning story collection Man Made Monsters which was chosen as the 2022 best of the year by the Washington Post, Booklist Editors’ Choice, and Publishers Weekly. She says she writes fiction and nonfiction for everyone, but mostly she writes for the 12 year old who didn’t have the books she really wanted until she wrote them herself. Her latest young adult Indian Territory Futurism novel is The Art Thieves, and owes much to Octavia Butler and Afro-Futurism. Andrea grew up in Tulsa, but is currently a doctoral student in English at the University of Arkansas.
Hank Byrd
Author / Screenwriter / Filmmaker
Hank Byrd is a multifaceted talent in the world of entertainment. Beginning his journey as an intern on the martial arts film Kiss of the Dragon in 2001, he has spent the last 16 years working as a screenwriter, producer, director and author. His background gives him a unique understanding of how story, and the performance of it, are a marriage of talents and collaboration. Hank is also the creator of the hit Tubi series, Blerds, where he serves as the show's creator, head writer and executive producer. In 2023, he was one of the head writers on the crime thriller, Boneyard, starring Mel Gibson and Curtis 50 Cent Jackson. On June 13, he released LuvBytes, an anthology of seven tales of science fiction, fantasy, and horror exploring modern Black dating culture through the lens of a fictional dating app.
PANELS
"Crafting Fantastical Narratives"
SIGNINGS
"LuvBytes"
PANELS
"How The Big 80s Shaped The Modern World"
"Getting In the Game"
"Crafting Fantastical Narratives"
"The Road To The Con of Wrath"
SIGNINGS
"Heroes of Might & Magic: 30th Anniversary Retrospective"
Neal Hallford
Author / Game Designer / Filmmaker
Neal got his first geek credentials at Charles Page as the fourth president of OVNI before going on to a professional career as a writer and game designer, and is best known for his work on Betrayal at Krondor, Dungeon Siege and several others. In recent years he's branched out into audio drama production with Uncharted Regions and independent filmmaking, leading to his role as director of photography for Larry Nemecek's THE CON OF WRATH, a Star Trek documentary. Neal's latest book -- Heroes of Might & Magic: 30th Anniversary Retrospective -- is about one of the most successful fantasy strategy games of all time, and will be released on November 25th by Dark Horse Books.
Kenneth Mayfield
Artist / Technical Instructor
Kenneth began his career in game development in the mid-1980s, creating illustrations for board games, adventure games, and magazines. This led to an art position at New World Computing, marking his entry into the exciting world of video games. Over the years he held supervisory roles at studios including Bethesda Softworks, Northstar Studios, Top Dog Software, Charybdis, and Holistic Design. He later transitioned into agency work where he continued to develop games and interactive applications. Currently he is entering his 17th year as a Career and Technical Instructor at Tulsa Technology Center’s Riverside Campus where he teaches 3D Graphics and Animation, and continues to freelance for the game industry while staying engaged with its evolving landscape. He is also a former president of OVNI and was a founding member.
PANELS
"How the Big 80s Shaped the Modern World"
EVENT
Presiding Judge, OVNIcon Art Show
Jana Ondrechen Hallford
Art Historian / Author
Jana Ondrechen Hallford joins OVNIcon as the host of our Indigenous Representation in Pop Culture panel. Along with being a member of the First Nations Haudenosaunee / Kanien'kehá:ka people of the Northeast Woodlands, she holds a MA in Art History, and specializes in Native North American art. She’s been an art critic for the La Jolla Light, covered the early days of Comic-Con International, contributed research to the SyFy Channel (when it was still branded SciFi), wrote a guidebook on the CBS TV series Beauty and the Beast, and had her photography and artwork juried into major art shows. Currently she’s writing a book on the relationship between art and cultural restoration in Indigenous communities.
PANELS
"Indigenous Representation In Pop Culture"
EVENT
Judge, OVNIcon Art Show
PANELS
"OVNI Honors"
PANELS
"How the Big 80s Shaped the Modern
World"
EVENT
OVNIcon Honors
Rodney Echohawk
Journalist / Photographer
A lifelong Sandite and fulltime newspaper journalist and photographer for 31 years at the Sand Springs Leader, Rodney Echohawk helped revive the Oklahoma State University Science Fiction Club in 1979. In 1980, he worked alongside original faculty sponsors Tana Garrett and Carol Simmons at Charles Page High School to found the club that became OVNI. He was also a volunteer for many years at OKon -- a convention which began as a Star Trek mini-con in 1977 and grew into the largest convention in Oklahoma. He was part of OKon's organizing committee during its final year in 1992.
PANELS
"Crafting Fantastical Narratives"
SIGNINGS
"The Skylight Series"
Jason C. Wint
Author
J. Wint is an award-winning author who began his writing career in 2004. He grew up in the 70’s watching science fiction movies and reading worn-out fantasy novels. He writes character driven stories that explore supernatural, mysterious, and fantastical realms. While studying architecture, he stumbled across his first haunted library, wrote a story about it, and never looked back. Wint has a degree from the University of Oklahoma and has been a licensed architect since 2004. He has written six novels in the acclaimed Skylight Series. When he isn’t writing about haunted libraries, Wint spends time with his wife and daughter somewhere in the Great Plains.
CPHS MAIN STAGE
- HOW THE BIG 80s SHAPED THE MODERN WORLD The 1980s were a pivotal time for fandom and shaped much of how fandom is still experienced today. A panel of CPHS original OVNI founders discuss Star Trek, Star Wars, Dungeons & Dragons, video games, space exploration and other factors lead to the pop media culture that we live in today. SCIENCE OFFICER'S LOG WITH DR. MCGINTY Dr. Sheila McGinty hosts a roundtable with guests drawn from a variety of scientific fields to talk about interesting new discoveries, new challenges, and the ever-evolving world of scientific inquiry. MOS EISLEY JUKEBOX The Mos Eisley Players present a hopping half hour of iconic pop culture themes drawn from movies, television, and video games. INDIGENOUS REPRESENTATION IN POP CULTURE Haudenosaunee art historian Jana Hallford chats with native artists and authors whose work is showing us how their cultures are being reflected and refracted in modern pop culture, and how the future might look when viewed through an indigenous lens. LEGENDS OF THE SOONER STATE Oklahoma's history is filled with people whose personal stories seem too strange or improbable to be real, but had impacts on their communities or on the state as a whole. Our panel talk about their favorite historical characters, and make the case for why these individuals should be remembered. AD ASTRA PER OKLAHOMAM Oklahoma has deep roots with space exploration, and is the birthplace of more of NASA’s astronauts than any other state in the nation, including Sand Spring native Bill Pogue (after which our local hobby field was named) and original home to Cherokee “hidden figure” Mary Golda Ross, the first female engineer at Lockheed Martin. Oklahoma author Larry Nemecek (best known for his book Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion) chats with a panel of science experts about our state’s special relationship with the stars, and how and why what NASA does in space impacts the lives of everyday Oklahomans. GETTING IN THE GAME Veteran game developers and OVNI alums Neal Hallford & Kenneth Mayfield lead a discussion about how computer games are made, and share insights into what kinds of skills that prospective game developers need in order to break into the industry. CRAFTING FANTASTICAL NARRATIVES Whether you’re writing space operas, high fantasies, or urban horrors, it takes a lot of time to develop interesting and believable worlds. What are the best practices and fun tricks that our authors use in their worldbuilding, and what pitfalls exist that first timers should avoid? THE ROAD TO THE CON OF WRATH Star Trek documentarian Larry Nemecek and director of photography Neal Hallford share their adventures, travails, and oftentime comic encounters while filming their upcoming documentary The Con of Wrath, featuring stories about Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Wrath of Khan's legendary producer Harve Bennett, and the organizers behind HoustonCon 82’s calamitous Ultimate Fantasy. PAGE TO STAGE Students from the CPHS dramatic department and members of the local community present an hour of readings, skits, and other staged performances based on classic works of science fiction and modern popular culture.
How the Big 80s Shaped the Modern World - #OVNI #FanCulture
Science Officer's Log With Dr. McGinty - #Science #Roundtable
Mos Eisley Jukebox - #MovieMusic #GameMusic #Performance
Indigenous Representation In Pop Culture - #Sci Fi #Fantasy #Horror #NativeCulture
Legends of the Sooner State - #Oklahoma #History #Mythology
AD ASTRA PER OKLAHOMAM - #SpaceFlight #SpaceScience #Oklahoma
Getting In the Game - #Gaming #IndieDev
Crafting Fantastical Narratives - #Worldbuilding #AltHistory #SciFi #Fantasy #Writing
The Road To The Con of Wrath - #Filmmaking #Documentary #FanCulture
Page To Stage - #Drama #Theater #Performance #FilmFestival
VAN HORN ART PAVILION
Our Art Pavilion is named in honor of Gordon Van Horn, a founding member of the original OVNI club, and a talented artist who was lost to us too soon. Among his many artistic achievements, he was involved with the poster and package designs for several Star Trek releases on DVD.
OVNIcon Art Show
Oklahoma illustrators, sculptors and computer graphics creators are invited to submit their work for inclusion in our juried show, judged by a panel of professional sci-fi artists.
Flashback Showcase
Share your retro memorabilia from fandom's past including comic book collections, posters, pins, big box computer games, OKON and SoonerCon badges, and more.
THE STEMyard
DEMO DAY
In the STEMyard, visitors will be treated to a grown up science fair complete with poster sessions, tech demonstrations, robots, mad lab experiments, and other imaginative applications of science, technology, and engineering.
OVNICON
CPHS Performing Arts Center
Charles Page High School
500 N Adams Rd
Sand Springs, OK 74063
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OVNIcon is an independent production of alumni from OVNI, Charles Page High School's first Science & Science Fiction Club, but is not officially affiliated with Charles Page High School, or the Sand Springs School System. All views and commentary made by OVNIcon's presenters are their own, and do not reflect those of the high school, school district, or its staff.