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Trek Expo Marks 20th Year Here

by: DAVID HARPER World Staff Writer
Sunday, June 28, 2009
6/28/2009 3:49:10 AM

Kimberly Long and Jessica Joplin have been "Star Trek" fans for a long time. On Saturday in Tulsa, they boldly went where they had never gone before.

They had their picture taken with Leonard Nimoy.

Nimoy was at the Union Multipurpose Activity Center, 6836 S. Mingo Road, as part of Trek Expo. That's where like-minded individuals will gather once again Sunday to celebrate their shared passion for all things "Star Trek," from the television show all the way through this year's hit theatrical film.

Long and Joplin didn't come from space to visit the event, but they did travel all the way from Wichita Falls, Texas.

Joplin said that she has been a fan as far back as she remembers. Long was a little slower to catch on to the series.

"I got her into it," Joplin said proudly.

The series had long completed its original run by the time either of the 27-year-olds discovered it.

Michael Hoyt, 50, of Tulsa does recall when the show first aired in the late 1960s. He said while a lot of his contemporaries were playing "cowboys and Indians" he was immediately hooked on the adventures of the crew of the Enterprise because it was so different from anything else on the air at the time.

Little did he know that, years later, being a "Star Trek" fan would help him in his dating life.

Seriously.

Hoyt said when he first met Dee McCoy of Skiatook he was a little reluctant to admit his allegiance to "Star Trek."

That's understandable. For a lot of men such a disclosure would doubtless shut down a promising relationship on the spot.

Luckily for Hoyt, McCoy was into the whole "Star Trek" thing. That was pretty clear from the fact that she was painted green on Saturday.

McCoy, 44, was emulating the look of the Orion slave girls as seen on "Star Trek." She said she remembers as a child watching the reruns of the show when it was in syndication and gravitating toward its themes of humans — and the occasional half-human, half-Vulcan — banding together for the common good.

To be fair, most of those on hand Saturday were not painted green or in any sort of costume. R.A. Jones, one of the emcees at Trek Expo, said that those who gather for such events have a shared love of the fantasy worlds that the original show, the subsequent television series that carried on the "Star Trek" legacy, and the feature films have presented.

Of course, the franchise received a huge boost earlier this year with a movie that was both a critical and commercial success.

Charles Briede, a 37-year-old Fort Worth resident, said Saturday that he loved the movie because it had a great story and terrific cast, which included Nimoy, who played Spock in the original series, but mostly consisted of young actors who were relatively unknown prior to the film.

Jones had a mixed opinion of the film, which presented the original classic characters in their younger days. Still, the film definitely garnered new fans for the franchise, he said.

This is the 20th anniversary of the Tulsa event. When asked if he thought there would be a Trek Expo in 2029, Jones was unsure.

On the one hand, he said, some genres such as Westerns eventually fade away. On the other hand, he said others such as the James Bond series of films endure through the decades.

If Saturday's crowd, which Jones estimated to be about 3,000, was any indication, the future of "Star Trek" fandom is in good hands.

Philip Crane, a 15-year-old from Ohio who was in town to visit family, strolled through the UMAC in his extremely authentic-looking "Star Trek" velour crew shirt and spoke of the sequels that this year's movie will doubtless spawn.

Kali Moran, 15, of Skiatook said that the appeal of "Star Trek" has as much to do with the stories it tells as it does with the characters or the timeless allure of space.

"It deals with moral issues," Moran said. "Life and death. Love and hate."

David Harper 581-8359
david.harper@tulsaworld.com

Associate Images:

Robert Collins as Dark Lord Waya Night Walker, Scott Lang as Lan/Ed Tul and Anthony Pagano as Jedi Anton pose as characters from "Star Wars" during Trek Expo on Saturday. MIKE SIMONS / Tulsa World

Actor Leonard Nimoy visits with fan Susan Hendrex of Catoosa on Saturday at the Trek Expo. MIKE SIMONS / Tulsa World

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