The old Romans honored their great by carving their names on things. The worst damage you could do to someone was to erase his memory for present and future by--literally--wiping his name from monuments and documents. "Damnatio Memoriae." Memory can also be lost by simple neglect. So let me dedicate this little series to focusing on certain of our fellow klin-fans. Some have gone on to the Black Fleet. Others have simply dropped away. Yet others are still active, but little known beyond their own special turf. If KAG will sponsor Klingon memory and give bandwidth to contemplation as well as to action, I will gladly take advantage!
 

So let me start with Shona Jackson, K'shona epetai-Ishkra, kenikito (Ambassador) of the Klingon Embassy, an organization she ran from her home in Tucson, Arizona. New to Klin-fandom in 1988, I was pulling in every lead I could lay hands on to explore its potential. My thanks go to the roster of the Klingon Strike Force and to Kris who had corresponded with Shona for years earlier for my introduction to her. Shona had launched her Klingon Embassy in 1986, but had been an active Klingon-identified fan for a good nine years before that. Seems she had gotten into fandom almost at the ground floor and had connected with the people who traded film clips from TOS in the later seventies, early eighties.

She had some of the coolest stills of Kor, Koloth and Kang. By the time I 'met' her by mail early in 1989, she was an old hand, a veteran of the best sort. She had not burned out. She maintained the contacts she had established with most of the active Klingons around the country and Down Under. She had made a reputation contributing Klin-themed art, poetry and stories to zines like Lana Bown's KATRA (New Zealand) , Roberta Rogow's GRIP (New Jersey), the Rondeaus' CLIPPER TRADE SHIP (California). She projected a powerful mother-warrior persona in her character as K'shona, Klingon Ambassador to earth, an exiled one fulfilling her duty to Empire by building an information network. K'shona was an acquisitive scholar of Klingon culture. She knew the large zine series, Nu Ormenel and Antithesis, kept up with new material as Ann Schwader and Devra Langsam produced it, and recognized John Ford's Final Reflection as a rich source of inspiration for her own klin.

She had, early on, developed her own Klingon script with which she signed all her fannish work. She loved the ST shows and movies and wrote with sharp, critical affection about the flops as well as the successes as they appeared. She was

independent. She never merged her Embassy with any other Klingon organization, but gladly wrote to all who approached her.

In fandom, you meet many types. There are "hoarders" who share little, too busy with their own campaigns to really give much to newbies. And there are "sharers" who pass the magic to those who ask. I was desperately interested in fannish publishing of the Klingon sort. I also had discovered the joys of filk music. I also wanted to build uniforms, especially the Classic Klingon models. I wanted it-NOW! ALL OF IT!! NOW!!! According to Kris, K'shona was the one to "fly to".

She was partly Native American, dark, comely, with long black hair and black eyes. She was a feminist, a Wiccan, an intellectual in the sense that she was curious about everything, shared what she knew, learned from others. She loved horses, cats, Klingons (especially those compelling soldiers of TOS), music, crafts, gaming. She worked at some drudgy job she did not enjoy but endured in order to survive. It is clear that her life revolved around her fannish activities, and these she nurtured by a vast snail mail correspondence which she called the "Klingon COMMnet.". (She hated to type, and instead printed her letters by hand in an elegant, distinctive script. Only when she finally got a Mac computer did she start producing typed letters.)

She didn't pull her punches. She called an asshole an asshole. But she also had a way of detecting klin at a distance, by mail, even! I treasure a collection of her letters including things written to Kris and Gunahrk, that is Robert Jan of Australia, who kindly copied off his Shona materials (1986-88) so I could gather them in the Archive for future reference. There are also the letters she and I exchanged over the course of the year before she died of cancer early in 1990. (I think she was 39) Come to think of it, she was precisely my role model when Kris gave me the job of running Force Recon for KAG

When K'shona died it became clear that her mother, who lived near, her brother and her roommate, did not understand her Trek life and work. Shona's files apparently went out with the garbage. But, ha! We still have much of what she contributed safe in the zines she wrote and drew for, in her expressive letters, and in the Klingon Embassy materials she distributed.

Shona's Klingon-ness was totally consistent with her outlook on life. She didn't take any shit from anybody. She honored the Earth and the Elements. She had an evil sense of humor. She was brave. Cat and Kerla, she was your kind of woman. She's been here. Let's remember her!

If anyone would like to see and hear samples of her work, I offer the following:
 

*"Klingons, Cats and Kin-Folk"--an audio cassette of the collection of music K'shona selected. She especially loved the filks of Leslie Fish. Among the selections is her own poem 'Klingon Imperative', set to music and sung by Pam Wetzel, minstrel of the KSF in years gone by. The tape comes with her hand-lettered table of contents and background sheet.
 

*"Kurdeshin: Conflict and Resolution"-a five-page hand-lettered essay on the ways of the Klingon warrior.
 

*"Klenath-Klingon Linear B Script"-one hand-lettered sheet which gives K'shona's Klingon alphabet, numbers and syntax notes.
 

*"Klingon Imperative"-one-page hand-lettered copy of one of K'shona's most evocative Klingon poems.
 

*"Perception and Shadow"--a four-page typed essay dated 1989 in which K'shona discusses Klingon society, especially the role of women in the Empire.
 

* "List of Klingon Publications"--dated 8906.11, five-page typed, annotated bibliography of fannish Klingon publications and some professional publications.
 

* "By a Cat's Whiskers"-sixteen-page typed story set on the Enterprise of Kirk and Spock. The hero of the tale is a Klingon cat, the cherished pet of a Klingon ambassador (seems to be modeled on K'shona herself) who visits the ship.
 

* "Data Printout: the Klingon Embassy Revised 8908.16"-four page description of the levels of activity sponsored by K'shona's Klingon Embassy. You could join it and generate a Klingon character as a member. A membership form is included.