“ READY FOR LAUNCH!” you shout.“ THREE... TWO … ONE …” The rocket hisses to life
and smoke billows from beneath before you lose sight of it. Suddenly the nose glints out of the smoke and with a WOOSH, the rocket rips into the sky at over 100 miles per hour.
Here’ s the thing, that isn’ t a dream or a fake scenario. For Evan Jolliff, an Olympia High School Aerospace Club veteran, launching rockets is just a regular afternoon, and he wants you to know nothing’ s stopping you from living the same dream.
“ IT BLEW UP”
Evan didn’ t join the club because he was some born engineer; he signed up in middle school because it was one of the only clubs that sounded cool. He ' d always liked the idea of flight, but when it came to a real rocket and a real competition, he felt completely clueless. And then, his first rocket exploded right on the launch pad— it never even made it off the ground.
Here ' s the part nobody tells you about becoming a rocketeer: it doesn ' t start with getting it right. It starts with things blowing up, and that ' s fine.
THE BAD YEAR
His first real year went badly. His team was short on people, and at qualifying, the first of three flights scored around 70. In the American Rocketry Challenge the lowest score wins— which makes 70 points a total disaster, not a slow start.
They never recovered that season and Evan was left with a burning question that so many other kids face— maybe this just isn ' t for me. And he came close to believing it.
SUMMER 2026— ISSUE NO. 15 | 23