Carolina Gomez Lagerlof received the Big Heart Award during the Hugo ceremony at Worldcon 75 on August 11. Lagerlof has been active in building Swedish fandom and working as an emissary from Swedish fandom to the rest of the fannish world. The award was presented by Vince Docherty.
Edie Stern and Joe Siclari received the Big Heart Award during the Hugo ceremony at MidAmeriCon II on August 20. Siclari and Stern have worked to preserve fannish history and help make it more accessible. The award was presented by Sue Francis.
Ben Yalow received the Big Heart Award from Sasquan on August 22 at the Hugo Ceremony. Yalow has worked on most worldcons in either an active or advisory role and has never stinted offering advice based on his long years of convention running or hotel liaising.
During the Retro Hugo Ceremony, several other awards were presented.
Tom Veal was presented with the Forrest J Ackerman Big Heart Award at the Hugo Award Ceremony at LoneStarCon 3. Veal was recognized for the more than thirty years he has spent in fandom, often working behind the scenes in treasury, for worldcons, ISFiC Press, and Windycon. Veal’s all night parties at LosCon were mentioned as was his chairmanship of Chicon 2000 and (reluctantly) of the International Space Development Conference.
Fan James “Rusty” Hevelin (b.1922) died on December 27. Hevelin became active in fandom in the 1930s, publishing the apazine H-1661. He attended Denvention 1 before joining the army and serving in the South Pacific during World War II. Returning to fandom, Hevelin became a huckster and frequent con attendee, serving as a guest of honor at numerous cons, including Denvention 2, the 1981 Worldcon. He received the First Fandom Sam Mosckowitz Archive Award for collections and the Big Heart Award. Hevelin was a founder of Pulpcon.
Gay Haldeman was the recipient of this year’s Forrest J Ackerman Big Heart Award. The award was presented at the beginning of the Hugo ceremony by Dave Kyle.
The Forrest Ackerman Big Heart Award was presented at Aussiecon 4 on September 5 during the Hugo Award ceremony. This year’s winner was Australian fan Merv Binns. Binns has been active in Australian con-running and clubs since the 1960s. He was one of the faces of Australian fandom in the run up to Aussiecon 1 in 1975 and managed to acquire sf films not released in Australia for private viewing in the age before commercial video tapes.
An appreciation of Merv Binns by Aussiecon Fan GoH Robin Johnson on the occasional of Binns receiving the Chandler Award in 1993.
Prior to the announcement of the Hugo Awards at Anticipation, Dave Kyle presented the Forrest J Ackerman Big Heart Award to Andrew I. Porter. Porter has long published fanzines and Sf Chronicle.