Hank and Cleo Kocol are charter members and past directors of AOF, and are the founders of the Sun City Humanists in Roseville. Creative polymaths with restless, roving minds, they are pinwheels of energy, writing on a broad spectrum of topics.

Janet Borchers of Meadow Vista, CA, joined AOF in August 1995. Her satire is gentle, but under the surface, teeth are waiting.

John C Reiger, potter, congressional candidate, erstwhile psych student and ernest peace activist, and a MENSA member to boot, has been an AOF member and supporter since April 1996. Click to http://www.johnreigerpottery.com/ for his background; please don’t miss the poetry and his Mouse Story! Then, questions, kudos, curses? Email John here, or visit this form to learn of his next pottery show.

John likes ...
 Veterans For Peace: www.veteransforpeace.org
 Peace & Freedom Party: www.peaceandfreedom.org
 Potters helping potters: www.pottersforpeace.org

"No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country."
~ Alexis de Tocqueville 

John Hodges, born 1952, was raised Episcopalian, went nuts over Ayn Rand at age 17, received a B.A. in Economics, followed a Guru for five years, returned to atheism at age 30, and since then has read a lot of philosophy, mostly philosophy of ethics. He also reads about history, nature and science, but does not own a TV. That he grew up reading science fiction and fantasy, and watching "B" movies, may explain much. His topic is the attitudes of atheists toward religion.
        "Honesty will give you all the truth there is," John writes, "and no more."

Born May 1952, raised in Sacramento, Ken Nahigian had deep if brittle religious convictions of the Eastern Orthodox variety until his pre-teens. Then he began to read.  Books led him all over the map: to atheism, positivism, academic skepticism, mysticism, even the occult. In his early 20's, after a brush with Campus Crusade, he fell back into Christianity, this time of the Protestant neo-fundamentalist kind. Pulling free was like a long, slow tooth extraction, absent novocane. Luckily he found science fiction fandom about then, and the organized Freethought community. For the first time, it seemed OK to wonder, to guess, to be wrong, and to learn from it. So he continues to grow and learn. You may see a kind of evolution in these writings, messages to friends arranged in reverse chronology. These days his knuckes barely drag. A little, maybe.

        "I don't have an answer," Ken says, "but I admire the question."

        You can contact him c/o any of the AOF officers. See the Contact page.

Remembering Mildred
March 16, 1929 - October 25, 1994

A founder of the Humanist Association of the Greater Sacramento Area, the first major local freethought organization (formed 1979), Mildred McAllister headed and guided the organization for 14 years, and also served on the Board of Directors for the American Humanist Association. She was the "Founder of the Feast," who bent the first grasses, pointed the way, and scattered the first seeds of freethought in this rough soil. Her untimely death in 1996 left us heartsick and grieving. Would she be pleased at what we have become? We can hope. Here are wrintings, by Mildred and about her.

Dr. Richard Cevantis Carrier, born December 1, 1969, is a professional historian, former editor in chief of the Secular Web (Internet Infidels), Graduate Student Instructor (Columbia University), and Librarian's Assistant (Electronic Texts Service: Butler Library, Columbia University). He holds a Ph.D. in Ancient History from Columbia University, and is fluent in Germain, French, Latin and Ancient Greek. He has published numerous articles in books, journals and magazines, and appeared in the documentary film The God Who Wasn't There, where he expressed his doubts on the historicity of Jesus. He contributes to The God Contention, a web site comparing and contrasting various worldviews. In 1995 he married Jennifer Robin Paynter (now Carrier). Visit his website at http://www.richardcarrier.info/.

Stacy M. Reese writes under the pen-name Kindred. Her topics are bone marrow donaion and a philosophical fantasy, "Thinker's Anonymous."