Bob Null (1938-2010)

Bob Null at Conozoic, the 1989 Westercon. Photo by Galen Tripp.

One of the most popular and hardworking active members of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, Bob Null, passed away June 23 after a long fight against cancer.  He was 72.

Bob first walked into the club in 1979 and over the decades served 20 terms as the club’s vice-president – no sinecure, but a demanding job with responsibilities like opening and closing the clubhouse at all kinds of hours several days each week, and shepherding a myriad of club property.

Bob served many terms on the LASFS Board of Directors, too, and made himself indispensable to local conventions, such as the club’s annual Loscon. His mastery of logistics was universally acknowledged. Everyone referred to his assignment as “the Bob Null position.”

One of my memories about him is that when we introduced the L.A.con III staff during the general committee meeting, with lots of out-of-towners present, Bob Null got the biggest round of applause. His work was respected by fans everywhere.

The folks at the annual Doctor Who convention, Gallifrey One, went into detail about his contributions:

[Bob] has been an important part of Gallifrey One since our foundation. Bob made certain our supply truck was ordered, supervised its loading and unloading, and provided material management throughout the convention. He purchased supplies for the Con Suite, organized our office equipment, supervised the loading and unloading of our TARDIS, and verified the usability of equipment such as our art show displays and main stage pipe & drape.

LASFS has a tradition of honoring all donors of a certain amount as Patron Saints, a list which naturally includes Bob. Of course in his case, besides being celebrated at the 19th meeting of each year, he’ll be remembered every time a truckload of equipment is sent off to a con and anyone works on the club archives– in fact, just about every time the key turns in the clubhouse lock.

2 thoughts on “Bob Null (1938-2010)

  1. With all the problems I had with LASFS, I never had any with Bob. He had good will for all — not a mean bone in his body — and a delightfully punnish sense of humor. He wasn’t afraid of hard physical work, either, a fannish rarity.

    This is a source of sorrow. One can only make it better by imagining him, Bruce Dane, Marjii Ellers, and the best of so many others in that great Room Party in the Sky.

  2. @David – Good point about Bob’s sense of humor. That’s what I had in mind when I selected Galen’s photo of him doing a kind of self-caricature — which I probably need to explain to people seeing it out of context.

Comments are closed.