Article From Baraboo News Republic of January 17, 2018

This article appearing in the Baraboo News Republic of January 17, 2018 (which takes about five minutes to read) is the edited version of an over an hour long interview. There was, indeed, a great deal more blatant promotion of Klingon Assault Group, and the Sauk County Humane Society, and our local group, as well. We tried, very hard, to focus the interview of the “fun” of KAG (at one point, literally every other word of one of our remarks was the word “fun.” The “join or die” phrase was meant as a joke, and we tried, diligently to indicate that it would be a matter of “join or die of boredom.” Hopefully, we can get some locals to come out, meet us, get to know us, and learn all about the “fun” that is the foundation of KAG (and possibly join).

marSal vestai Kurkura
Captain, Imperial Marines
CO Ha’DIbaH lulIgh ghom
Cold Death Quadrant
Cold Terror Fleet
Klingon Assault Group
Klingons invade Baraboo
BEN BROMLEY [email protected]
The Klingons are recruiting in Baraboo. Their pitch? Join or die.
A local couple has created a chapter of the Klingon Assault Group, an international “Star Trek” fan organization. Lifelong “Trekkie” Bob Poole and wife Eilene Sullivan will hold a meeting Saturday in hopes of filling their ranks.
Their goal? Defeating Starfleet, of course. But also, making friends and having fun.
“You’re like a big family of geeks,” Poole said. “I’m always meeting new old friends.”
He has turned heads at Fair on the Square and the Paws for a Cause walk, walking the grounds in full Klingon regalia. He and his wife are effective fundraisers for the Sauk County Humane Society. The menacing grin and a prop gun make Poole rather persuasive.
“We do everything and anything we can for the Humane Society,” Poole said.
He is a veteran of science fiction fan conventions, where he isn’t the only guy walking around in a Klingon costume. If he can drum up enough support, he’d like to bring small, starter conventions to Baraboo.
“It’s fun to play dress-up and be somebody else for a while,” Poole said.
A Muscoda native and former private investigator, Poole moved back to Wisconsin four years ago to be near his aging mother. In 2013, he married Sullivan, in costume, at a convention in St. Louis.
“It interested her to be silly and goofy,” he said. “She firmly embraces geekdom.”
“They’re very much a family,” Sullivan said. “It’s a lot of fun.”
A decade earlier, Poole left the enemy — he was a four-star general in a Starfleet fan group — to play the villain. He liked that the Klingons ask for no membership dues and enforce only one rule: Have fun.
“Someone’s got to be the antagonist to the protagonist,” Poole said.
Also, the Klingons lack Starfleet’s tiresome rules of succession. Among the Klingons, the only way anyone could take Poole’s job as leader of the local group would be to kill him. “You never know, that might come in the not-too-distant future,” Sullivan said with a smile, “because I’m the next one in line.”
She’s kidding about wanting to take control, and there are no assassinations in the Klingon Assault Group. For now, the local chapter’s only activity is supporting the Humane Society. Meetings will be held the third Saturday afternoon of each month at Pizza Ranch.
For the inaugural meeting, Poole will don his costume and makeup, an hourlong process. This involves putting on a wig and headpiece while wearing a plastic bag over his head. “I keep threatening him that I’m going to tie it,” Sullivan said.
Poole said all sci-fi fans are welcome, whether they’re fans of the original TV “Star Trek” series, the spinoffs or the movies. “We don’t discriminate,” he said.
His voyage toward becoming a Klingon began the instant he saw the USS Enterprise flash across his black-and-white television in 1966. “When ‘Star Trek’ first appeared on the screen, I was in love,” he said.
Poole has roped his wife into his boyhood obsession, and hopes to enlist reinforcements to conquer Baraboo in the name of the Klingon Empire. “Come on out; meet us all,” he said. “Get to know us, get to know Klingon Assault Group, get to know who you really are.”

 

Responses

  1. A minor correction. At one point, the interviewer/reporter refers to our CO, marSal vestai Kurkura (Bob Poole) as a “life-long” Trekkie. Actually, for about the first sixteen years of that life, “Bob Poole” knew absolutely nothing about “Trek,” or “Star Trek,” as there was not yet any “Star Trek.” But, from then on…oh, yes.

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