she dies of her disease. Jake Mosby is a womanizing alcoholic who helps the BCMA in paying off debts. Jake is a mining engineer. He also introduces them to a writer of a small newspaper, Basil Oglethorpe. He later settles down a bit and starts dating Miss Riley for a period of time, trying to be dependable for her. He is a veteran of the Korean War, and compares the BCMA's rocket launches to his war experiences. Basil Oglethorpe is the writer of a small newspaper called the McDowell County Banner. He makes sure to attend the boys' rocket launches and uses them to boost popularity for his newspaper. Mr. Ferro is in charge of a group of company machinists who help the BCMA build their rockets. Mr. Caton is a machinist in Mr. Ferro's team. He is the main builder of the BCMA's rockets. Dorothy Plunk is Sonny's dream girl; he even describes her as "God's Perfection" at one point in the memoir. While Sonny spends most of his time infatuated with her, although she still spends time with him, Dorothy only wants a friend relationship and goes out with other boys. For a large section of the book, Sonny ignores her, because she started a relationship with his brother Jim. She was also the valedictorian of Sonny's graduating high school class and got the spot Sonny wanted in a calculus class because her grades were higher. Valentine Carmina is an older girl who likes Sonny. Ultimately, it is implied she has sex with him in the backseat of a car on the same night Dorothy breaks his heart. Homer later describes the event as her pity to him. Mr. Isaac Bykovski is a worker in the mine who helps Sonny with his first rockets. Homer Sr. makes him work in the mine as punishment for helping Sonny. Later, Homer Sr. offers him his job back in the machine shop, but Bykovski does not accept the offer because he made more money in the mine. He is later killed in a mine collapse while operating a loader. Geneva Eggers is a middle-aged woman who was rescued as a baby by Homer Hickam Sr. when her house was on fire. The rest of her family was still in the house when it went up in flames but she was the only one whom Homer Sr. saw. Everyone else in her