My name is Sean East and I've been a
member of the 501st Legion
and Dewback Ridge Garrison for about
eleven years now and this is my second
year to be the commanding officer for
the Dewback Ridge garrison and basically
what that means is that I'm in control
of the state of New Mexico and the
troopers that we have here right now we
have 79 active members in the state so
we've definitely been growing ever since
we first started back in 2005 back then
we just had a handful of troopers grew a
couple of troopers over the years and
then eventually now we're breaking
almost 80 now so there's been a lot of
growth and it's great to see that that
says a lot for our group and for what we
do for the state a positive thing. My
name is Tasha Ruth I've been in the Legion
since July of 2014. I am the merchandise
officer for my garrison the public
relations officer for my detachment and
the commander of all the female TIE
Pilots in the Legion.
My name is Ben Baca and I am a member of
the Dewback Ridge Garrison of the 501st Legion in New Mexico. I've been a
part of the 501st Legion since
September of 2013.
With us being the 501st Legion, we
represent the bad guys of the Star Wars
universe and we also work with the good
guys with the Rebel Legion, who's also a
worldwide costuming club. We like to do
things hand in hand with them as well as
other groups called the Mandalorian
mercs and also the Galactic Academy
which is for kids that are 17 and under
which my son is a part of and a lot of
other my other my friends kids are also
a part of too so we we have fun letting
our kids take part in our events going to
troops and and you know showing them
what we do and hopefully they'll be able
to continue and continue that legacy as
they get older.
We do a lot of fun events we also do a
lot of events that just they make an
impact on the community whether we be
whether we go to do something for
charity or like the the Make-A-Wish
Foundation we do a lot with them we do
visits for the Children's Hospital here
in town March of Dimes
you know breast cancer walks. Toys for Tots there's another
big one that we do but on top of that
there's other events that we've done
whether it be Weird Al Yankovic coming
into town and us showing up and dancing
onstage with him, comic book conventions
another big event for us is the
Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. My favorite
event is probably the Albuquerque
International Balloon Fiesta yeah ever
since the Darth Vader balloon started
coming to the Fiesta it's really cool
because the Dewback Ridge Garrison
gets to be the special guest of the
balloon at the Fiesta we get to go and
troop hang around the balloon kind of
help with crowd control
all that stuff and then it's just really
amazing at how how many people get
excited for all the stormtroopers and
you know how many pictures you know get
taken of us you know we get so many
people asking thing get our picture
taken with us and just hang out with
this and then we'll always get a big
group photo of all of the troopers in
front of the balloon and the crowd just
goes like wild it's like this horde of
people standing there taking pictures of
us it's amazing. Probably my favorite
troop, though, is a troop that was really
small it's really simple it was just me
and another member named Wayne, we went
to an elementary school and it was just
it was some kind of assembly that they
were having with their kids and it
involved the entire school and also
there was like some other local mascots
from like the local you know the the
Isotopes and at the time we had a
basketball team called Thunderbirds
there was their Thunderbird mascot was
there, so we were all on the playground
and we were taking pictures you know the
teachers had us taking pictures with their
classes, and as soon as the photos were done
all the kids in the playground just
suddenly mobbed us and wanted autographs
and so me and Wayne just got mobbed by a
little about 1,000 kids and so we stood
back to back so we could autograph for
these kids and the kids didn't really
have autographed books or anything like
that so we were autographing their arms
and their pants and their legs and their
shoes and their thermoses and lunchboxes
and their backpacks and their
schoolbooks so we're just joking about
how these kids would have gone home to
their parents with like our autographs
on their pants and hopefully they weren't
too upset about that. I think my favorite
troop would be the Special Olympics and
we just get a lot of affection from the
participants of the Special Olympics
lots of hugs and high-fives so it's kind
of a feel-good so I'd say that was my
favorite troop.
You go to any state even if you
happen to travel abroad you're gonna
have brothers and sisters that you can
relate to people that will meet with you
and go out to dinner with you and hang
out with you so it definitely has
there's a cool bond there that you share
with all these people that you may have
never met in person but you do share
that love for Star Wars and that has
brought together a lot of people. Also,
building on that, the people that I've
met just here in New Mexico have
become my best friends and my family and
it's something that I've been able to
bring my son into as well and let him
feel a part of something and he's got a
costume so that's been exciting as well.
I think the part that I like most about
the 501st Legion is like the
close-knit community everybody is like a
family and just working with the
community. I would really recommend for
people to join the 501st Legion you
know if people are afraid to kind of
take that step forward I would urge them
to do so because I've made a lot of
great friends and family in the Legion.
