Tulsa Star Trek
| Convention | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Tulsa Star Trek |
| Dates: | spring 1983 |
| Frequency: | |
| Location: | |
| Type: | fan-run, guests |
| Focus: | Star Trek: TOS, other |
| Organization: | |
| Founder: | |
| Founding Date: | |
| URL: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Tulsa Star Trek was a 1983 Star Trek convention.
It was fan-run.
This is not the same con as OKon.
Guests of Honor
They included:
The Scene of "Banned from Tulsa"
This is the con with the claim to fame of being the scene of Banned from Tulsa, an incident in which Roger Elwood (a Disney publicity agent "Something Wicked This Way Comes") complained about the fanzines, Out of Bounds to the sheriff of Tulsa, and subsequently pressured the concom to remove them from the dealer's room.
Con Report
Anne McCown and I began our drive to Tu1sa, OK. to attend Tulsa ST 83, having counted the days, hours, and minutes for several months. Though we never attained Warp 5 on the way, we did finally arrive and after a frustrating hour of orbiting the Tulsa Excelsior we finally closed in on it at exactly the right moment to intercept George Takei who was just returning from his daily run! That was a great way to start off a memorable weekend. We were also almost exactly in time for registration. We were among the first in line and therefore among the first to hit the dealers room. A lot of money exchanged hands and we staggered back to our room loaded down with zines, pictures, books, t-shirts; you name it, we bought it! I kept finding one more thing I couldn't live without — you'd think I'd also found some magical way to live without money!
The highlight of that first afternoon was having Jimmy Doohan, who is all the wonderful things I'd heard about him, com to our room and share a bottle of Arkansas wine which Anne had brought him as a gift. He is a beautiful man end I felt extremely lucky to have this personal with with him.
The highlight of the next evening was having a glass of wine in the bar with George Takei. He is such a fine person and most interesting; we were sorry when the con official came and took him away for his evening talk.
In addition to the two superb stars who each spoke three or four times, Tulsa Con provided a banquet, a great dealers room, plenty of films end episodes, blooper reels, a wonderful assortment of fans, and all in all a tremendous weekend. Reports are that 2,000 fans attended and that there were about 35 dealers. Though the latter did not seem happy with their financial gain for the weekend (no fault of mine, believe me!), everyone else seemed to come away happy.
The most interesting occurrence on the zine front had to do with the K/S zines (Out of Bounds series) which had been among the first to be displayed. At some point a during Friday afternoon I happened to overhear some men inform the sellers that they might be asked to remove their zines, with their very graphic covers, from display*.
By Saturday afternoon, they had, so I asked direct questions and, to the best of my knowledge, here's what happened. An employee of Disney Films who was present in connection with a showing of Bradbury's SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, complained about the K/S zines to Con officials who then requested? demanded? that the zines be removed. And so they were.
Later this same Disney representative was given some time to promote the film. The only interesting aspect of this program, to me anyway, was the presence of a very handsome young man who works, I think, in radio in Tulsa. I will let you guess who he was, but here's a clue. He signed my copy of Something Wicked as follows, "Son of Khan, Victor M********." He shared some tidbits of life with his father, and we enjoyed him very much. (Editor's notes: for those out there who are more dense than others, his father's first name is Ricardo. If you still haven't guessed, we suggest you recite the credits of TWOK 500 tines, end subject yourself to five seasons of "Fantasy Island" reruns.)
One of the burning issues which kept coming up during the Q/A sessions was (of course), "Is Spock going to be in, ST III, or will Leonard Nimoy be directing only?" Neither star answered the questions, but Jimmy [Doohan]'s response left me feeling that Spock probably will not be in the movie, whereas George [Takei]'s responses left me somewhat more hopeful that he will be. One of then did comment that the movie would be out next Easter [1], if that means anything!
[...]
Anne and I both felt that it had been as nearly perfect as any weekend can be, and we both hated to see it come to an end. Now we'll start counting the days till Space- Trek II.[2]
References
- ^ a Christian religion reference: Easter, Jesus, returning from the dead, Spock...
- ^ report by Shirley Herndon in Communications Console (Mar/Apr 1983)