Kelly Lockhart, Geek Life Special Guest and the MASTER of the Hawaiian Shirt!

ConCarolinas 2018 Geek Life Special Guest

Kelly Lockhart has been a regular presence on the convention scene since he was a teenager back in the mid-80s. Over the years, he has done a little bit of everything in fandom: running costume contests, art shows, consuites, computer gaming rooms, working with the media, helping out with parades, overseeing convention operations, co-chairing a WorldCon bid, serving on multiple con committees, and being a panelist and moderator on countless panels.

Professionally, he co-hosts a morning radio show and runs an alternative weekly newspaper back home in Chattanooga as well as working with Baen Books. His most recent project for Baen is the “Black Tide Rising” anthology of zombie apocalypse stories he co-edited under his professional name of “Gary Poole” (long story) with New York Times bestselling author John Ringo. A second volume, “Voices of The Fall”, will be forthcoming in early 2019.

Additionally, he is the founder of both the very popular Robot Battles competitions and the Southern Fandom Resource Guide online convention calendar. Yeah, he keeps pretty busy.

In 2008, he was presented with the Rebel Award at the DeepSouthCon for lifetime service to
Southern Fandom. He has also been awarded with a Murrow Award (named after legendary
journalist Edward R. Murrow) for excellence in broadcast journalism, several Associated Press journalism awards, and a display case full of Addy awards for both radio and print advertising.

He has spent the better part of the last thirty years working in print and radio, as well as dabbling now and then in television production, and in theater and film as an actor, director, composer and screenwriter, though thankfully not all at the same time.

An active presence on social media (ask him about “the thread that never ends”), he spends his limited amount of free time writing and performing original music around his hometown, trying to herd his five cats, playing an occasional round of golf (badly), and continuing his lifelong quest to find the perfect brand of whiskey. He also is rumored to own more tropical shirts than Weird Al Yankovic, as he is almost never seen not wearing one.

We have a special running all year long in honor of our Media GOH – DC Douglas? Less than 15 minutes registering for your 2018 membership could save you 15% with the promo code DC@CC2018