B. Jack Radio. Am I talking to Kelly collector here? Speaking.
Okay. I've never met you before. Somebody told me about you and I wanted to call you and see if I could get an interview with you. Do you have time to do it right now?
Sure. Okay. All right. Well, I understand you collect things.
That's your hobby is collecting. What types of things do you collect? Well, I collect autographed books. I collect coins and I collect presidential memorabilia.
I see. But today, as I understand it, you want to talk about autographed books. Is that correct? Yes.
Okay. I love my autographed book. You know, my first question was going to be why? Well, I started collecting books.
90% of my books are in person that I collect. And so, you know, they're autographed in front. I'm on one side of the table and they're on the other side of the table. Unless his president Bill Clinton and he never sits down behind the table, he always stands up.
And you get to just walk right up to him and check his hand and he takes his hand with one hand and autographs with the other and things you on your way. That's right. But some of them I get, you know, I might order if they're autographed in a certain place and I can get the book autographed and I can't get to that person. You know, I might get it.
Autographed. Well, how long have you been doing this? Oh, about, oh, I don't know, several years. You know, five or six years, 10 years, something like that.
And how many books, how many autographs have you collected? Well, see, I have them kind of categorize. I've got probably about 60 or 70 that are autographed by people that are known that, you know, I call famous people. They may not be famous to everyone.
But some of them are, you know, then I have another set that I have, if I have duplicates of a book fine, and then I put them away in case I want to trade or, you know, something like that for another one. And, you know, and in some of them, I might get that, you know, I just collect because I get them fine, but they're not in the, in the first group that are, they don't like the bookshelf. I see. So you got to, you got them divided into groups.
Yes. I do. How many books would you say are in the first group of the real famous people? And the famous people probably about 60 or 70?
Oh, some, some, could you mention some people that our listeners might have might be familiar with? Well, I've got three books, different books. Autograph by President Bill Clinton. I have one autograph by President George W.
Bush. I have two autographs by President Jimmy Carter. I have a lot of astronauts, autographed books. Oh, tell us some of the astronauts.
I have, well, I have several autographs. I have those, and he is a real interesting person to get to meet. I really enjoy talking to him. And Tom Jones, he's not the singer, but he's, he's grown in space three, four times, four times, and then he's led some, some, some, some international flight spaceships.
And, and there's, the one that, because I have taught school before, and what his books was, Planetology, and it's really good pictures of space. And kids love to take pictures of them, and look at it, and they always want to know if I brought that book and the cover. I love to share my book now. But, and other astronauts are, let me see, who is it, Ross, and, oh, I've got about eight different books, autograph by different astronauts that I've met.
You can usually meet different astronauts when you go to the space center, and that will be their signing. But now, someone like Buzz Aldrin, I mean, he doesn't come back open, and you have to really get in line to, to get his books autographed. And I've also got children's books autographed by Buzz Aldrin, two different children's books that he's written. Oh, he's going to go ahead.
Well, I was, oh, Jerry Ross is another astronaut. He flew all the all six space shuttles, and he's, he's a really interesting person to talk to, and a very friendly guy to talk to. And, and Chris Hatfield, he's the Canadian astronaut that was the first astronaut to walk in space from Canada. And he's also a comedian and a folk singer, and he's, he's really good.
There's one video online that he's seeing, and he's on the space station. And he, he, he twirls his guitar in the air and everything. It's around. Well, I've got to ask you one question that automatically occurs to me when I hear your story.
I have lived for many, many years, and I have not met any astronauts. And of course, I've never been to the space center. But so how did you get so close to these astronauts? And how did you get, you know, to see the space center?
And how did you get to meet all these astronauts that you have autographs from? Oh, well, I had a faith and path. I could get in anytime I wanted to go. And so I had connections there because I had a daughter that worked there.
And so, you know, she, she worked on the shuttles. What did she do? You don't work for the space program? Yes, she did.
She was a rocket scientist and she worked on the booster rocket. And she worked on the last 18 space shuttles. Yes. And yes, she goes to university in Miami.
And how long did she work for the space program? She worked for him for the last three years. She closed down the space shuttle program. She worked until the very last day of the space shuttle program.
And she got to meet Jimmy Buffett. That was her big day because he came and played for their big party that they had. Wow. Well, let me ask you, let me ask you, Miss Collector, now, your daughter must have been really brilliant, you know, to get at everybody can't go to work for the space program.
So where did she get her, where did she get her undergraduate training? And how did she get to be so smart? In other words, I don't know. She just did.
She was, I think she was basically trained in at Lockheed Martin to do what she did at the space program because I told her if she learned all that that she could work for NASA and she said that was her plan and she did it. Well, how long did she have this ambition? But she, what she interested in science and elementary school, high school, where did this? Yeah, she was.
She was interested in airplanes and anything that put, you know, things together. And, you know, she was always interested in Legos and she loved math. And she had a friend that, you know, that was, had flown in World War II and he had flown, it was like the Coljack, you know, on the plane. And so I think that's where she got kind of Anderson's mind.
But there was a show on TV on the Discovery Channel that called planes and she, I think was called planes and she watched that all the time. And she thought, well, I can do that. Why can't I do that? I'm going to do that.
And, you know, so she went to the space center when she was 12, you know, and she bought one of the hats and a little boy at the mall, he saw and he came up. He said, oh, do you work at the space center? And she said, not yet. And she decided right in, she was going to do that.
Well, I realized that a lot of the work there is, is top secret. And I don't know how much you know, but do you know the nature of her work? What types of things did she do? How was she involved in this rocket science?
Well, she worked on the booster rockets and she worked on the air. She was hired to to design the airies and to redesign the booster rockets, because they were going to use the same booster rockets on the airies. And did she do computer work? Was that what it was or what?
No, she was on the design team. She didn't, well, I guess it's all on the computer. I don't know. I was never ever in.
I was not allowed to go in her office. Our office everywhere she worked, it was top secret stuff. And I was not allowed to go in there. So I never saw her office.
I never got to go in any of her offices. I'll get it going. You don't recognize some dirty books in there, do you? I didn't hear you.
I said, you don't recognize some dirty books in there, do you? There's no telling. No, I'm not. I'm just joking.
I wouldn't have known what I was reading if I went in there and looked at it, I'm sure. They were sayers. They let me in, actually. But it was really fun meeting all the different astronauts and everything.
And a lot of them, I met more than one time. But there's one that anytime you go to the Space Center in Florida, there's almost always an astronaut there. Now, they don't always have books that they've written, but you can always meet an astronaut and you can always have lunch with an astronaut. But I thought it was interesting Chris Hatfield, the Canadian astronaut, I think he was just absolutely great.
And I think my daughter had lunch with him twice once in Florida and once in Seattle. But in his book, he said, everyone that applies for a job at NASA is qualified. But not everyone gets hired. That it was an honor to get to work for NASA.
And certainly is. And he said, you know, you had to be able to get along with everyone. And they gave you a pad, you know, a badge or whatever, when you visitors pass things, when you go in. And you might talk to the gardeners or you might talk to the people in the cafeteria or just, you know, anybody.
And then they will say the people that were going to interview you will call around to those people and say, did you meet, did you see someone's out? Did you talk to them and things? And if you were really the any of these people, you didn't get hired. So you have to be able to work as a team and work with everybody.
I mean, that's really deep. Oh, it sure is. Before I wind this up, I want to get, you kind of intrigued me with the space program. I wasn't expecting that.
But I wanted to ask you, now you mentioned that you had autographs from astronauts and what other people did you mention or not? Oh, I have John Grisham. I'm sorry. I've got John Grisham and I've got Dean Kootz and I've got, oh, let's see, one autograph that I booked, I just got in the mail yesterday that I she's not famous.
Her name is Donna Austin, but she's a girl that I went to high school with. And she wrote this book and it's called Sunflower Princess. And it's a really good book. And she sent it to me autograph.
And I'm just really proud of that because, you know, I knew her and went to school with her and everything. But oh, I've got them. I'll just, children's books. I love to collect children's books that are autographed.
And I've got Hillary Clinton's books autograph, all three of hers. I don't have it. Take the village. But she just wrote one about it.
Take the village children's book. And maybe I'll get to get that one autographed someday. But I got the first lady Laura Bush and one of her daughter's books, autographed children's books that's autographed. But I love to find children's books that are autographed.
And the one I really want to get is President Obama's book. It's of the, I think, and it's a book he wrote about his, he wrote it for his children. And it's just a beautiful book and it's beautifully illustrated. And so that's one of my goals.
Oh, but do you know who I'm getting a book autographed by in September? No, yeah, October, November, November, I'm getting it. It's happening. Well, I'm going to get Pat Boone's book autographed.
I don't think it'll be worth much because he's written the jig in books. But I just thought, you know, that, you know, I also have Elmo's Pressley's autograph and I have a Chubby Checker's autograph. So I just thought it might be good to go with those two autographs. And I have three, I have three books autographed by former governors of Arkansas.
I have, of course, I got Bill Clinton and I've got Dale Bumpers and I've got over-flood books autographed. Right. Well, you know, I could go on and on and talk about it forever because I love to share them. I love to share the books and they're fun to go away.
I'm looking forward to getting this on the, on the web and sharing it with our listeners because I know they will find this interesting. And I wanted to tell you before I, before I go, because I realized that you could talk about this for hours and hours and I could listen to your hours and hours. But at some point, you know, I don't want the interview to go on too long. If we have to do, we may have to do another interview to, you know, to cover the rest of what you want to talk about.
And I would, I would love to do that too. So. Oh, I'd love to talk about it anytime. You know, that you have time or that I get in line with the other people, you know, that want interviewed.
Right. Well, and then we need to talk about your doll collection too. So, we'll do this again sometime. Oh, that'd be fun.
I really enjoy talking to you, Buster Jack. Oh, I'll have to make a part. Oh, I was, I was just wondering where I might be able to listen to. Well, it will be on my website in a little while.
I don't know exactly. I mean, I hope to have it on by tomorrow and all you got to do is go to the website www.bjackradio.net and you, there'll be a little button there that it will say something like, it'll take Kelly collectors, what it'll say. And you click on that and you can listen to the interview. Oh, good.
It won't be on Facebook. I might share it on Facebook. We might just put it on there too. I think it'll be good to share it on Facebook.
So I'll tell you what, you remind me because I think I can put those on Facebook if I can't. I didn't know, because I hadn't seen any on Facebook. So I don't know if I've done any interviews on Facebook. It's not.
Let me, let me look into that. I don't know if I can or not. But I know it's getting very popular. A lot of people are listening to your interviews.
Right. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you go now. And I really do appreciate you talking with us. I'm looking forward to sharing this with our listeners.
And I know they're going to be just as fascinated as I was to hear it. Oh, good. I hope so. Well, I always say, I had a woman who's a music teacher and she said, you always want to live your audience wanting more.
You don't, you don't want to talk about too much at one time. That's right. Well, I'm going to say goodbye to you and I'll let you know when this gets so quick. Well, thank you so much for calling.
You bet you. Okay, you take care. Okay. Bye.
All right. Bye. Bye. You have just heard an interview with Miss Kelly Collector on B.
Jack Radio. I hope you enjoyed it. Her daughter worked for the space program for many years. And she shared her information about the space program and about collecting autographed books.
I think it was very interesting. And I hope you do too. We will have this on the web soon. And you will get to hear it as a podcast.