Gene Roddenberry signature!

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Yesterday  donor and alum Mike Van Houten (CMU class of 1975) donated papers and CMU clothing from his time at CMU, 1972-1975. The paper documents sports, athletics, theatre, and social events at and affecting CMU during those years. On November 4, 1975 Gene Roddenberry spoke at CMU as part of the Program Board Presentations. Mike stood in line and got Roddenberry's signature! He was able to get the poster later. At that time it was common practice to slit the posters to try to prevent people from collecting them. You can see the slit from the center to the bottom right corner of the poster. We have other posters in the Clarke that are similarly slit. At least this was sharp knife so the poster doesn't have holes gouged into it. This is so cool! This is the closest I've ever been to real Star Trek history! And I get to touch it and house it and catalog it! I'm so geeked out! I don't go on about it, but I am a Trekkie, I love Spock, and always hoped and still do that our future will become a more egalitarian like the one Star Trek envisioned and brought into our homes and cultural ideals. The only time I ever wrote to anyone in entertainment was to Gene Roddenberry when they were going to make the first Star Trek movie and they were considering not including Spock. Like the rest of fandom, I was very unhappy about that. Thanks Gene and Mike!



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