Palm Beach Con 1/ Trekon Int’l 1975

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On August 30 - September 1, 1975, Star Trek Federation of Fans held a three day convention at the Colonnades Beach Hotel in Palm Beach Shores, Florida. The con covered Star Trek, SF, and comics with many events going on.

Con Committee

Con - Chairmen––––––––––––––––John Ellis and Rick Coy

Secretary —––––––––––––––––––– Ruth White

Finance —–––––––––––––––––––– Guy McIntyre

Art Show —––––––––––––––––––– Carlene Gardner

Audio Visual —––––––––––––––––- Howard Goldberg

Registration —––––––––––––––––– Elaine Clipper

Con staff members

Ken Mitchroney       Bob Haupt       Marcus Welage        Della Hawks

Carloine Moorer       Joyce Huser     Bonnie Gardner       Diane Farnsworth

Mary Raiman            Marc Graham   Mary Polyniak          Anne Malcolm

Miriam Martinez       Sara Sherman  Jeannie Tomkins      Cathy Tortorici

Steve Tortorici         Dale Snodgrass

Special thanks was given to James Van Hise of the S.F.C.A. For help in preparing the program book.

The cover was a painting called “Today and Tomorrow” © 1975 by C.C. Beck, the back cover was “Night Before Launch” © 1975 by Frank Kelly Freas.

Guests:

George Takei - Lt. Sulu of Star Trek (at this time classic trek was all there was)

Noel Neil - Lois Lane to two Supermen - George Reeves on TV and Kirk Allan in the serials.

F. Kelly Freas - Hugo award winning SF Artist.

Joe Green - SF writer and affiliated with NASA

Keith Laumer - SF writer best known for his Retief and Bolo series.

C.C. Beck - Creator of Captain Marvel (Shazam)

Jim Mooney - Artist of Batman, Spiderman, Tommy Tomorrow, Superman, Supergirl, Submariner and more.

Sondra Marshak - Editor of “Star Trek Lives”

Myrna Culbreath - co-editor of “Star Trek Lives”

Art Stark - Producer of the “Tonight Show” for over five years.

T. Casey Brennan  - writer for many comic book companies including Warren, Skywald, Red Circle and Charleton.

 

FILMS:

Forbidden Planet       It Came From Outer Space    Silent Running    Satan’s Satellites

THEM!                        How to steal the World          The Day The Earth Stood Still

The Wizard of OZ        Rocket Ship       The Spider Web    Phantom of the Opera

Jason and the Argonauts      20 Million Miles From Earth    Mysterious Island

It Came From Beneath the Sea     7th Voyage of Sinbad    Earth VS the Flying Saucers

A Serial Sampler with chapters from: Capt. Marvel, Blackhawk, Perils of Nyoka and others.   A cartoon sampler including: Bugs Bunny, Roadrunner, Tom and Jerry, Donald Duck, Mighty Mouse and more.

A little about the con from the memory of one of the co-chairmen over 35 years latter.

We got to the hotel around seven on the 28th.  The Con suite was to be ready for us that night so we could set up the next morning with no trouble.  The people at the desk acted as though they never heard of us and the the person in charge of conventions had left for the day.  The room wouldn’t be ready until the next day- about that time the owner of the hotel happened to come in and he knew one of the con committee members and came over to see what was up.  Once he learned what had happened he got us another room for the night.  We get everything in the room  which included three 16mm projectors, a ton of 16mm films, program books, awards, badges, and so on.  We all decided we were going to watch the Wizard of OZ - we had a NEW print of it for the con and we knew none of us would have a chance of seeing it when it was screened.

7AM we get our stuff and get ready to setup and we find out that there is another convention in the hotel and they have some of our space.  We need to be ready for registration by five PM and people would be getting in all day and we had to reallocate the rooms.  Only two rooms were effected - but one was our dealers room - which meant moving the dealers room to a smaller room with two other smaller rooms. (Luckily two dealers from New York wanted one of the smaller rooms to split between them and it made the other room work out just right).  We lucked out that George Takei and Noel Neil were on the same plane - so we had only one trip to the airport. Most of the other guest lived in Florida. By the end of the night all our guest  are in and most of the dealers and we were starting to get in people who were staying at the hotel to make sure they would be there bright and early for the opening of the con.  The elevator to the con suite acts like it may die at any time.

7 AM Saturday Morning - DAY ONE - we are at go! We open the registration at 9 AM and the crowd begins.  By 10 we have the official opening.  Then the day gets crazy. It seems no one on the con committee gets any free time - problem solving becomes an art.  We hold our committee meeting at around 1 AM, so we would be ready for the next day (HA).

The rest of the con was a whiz of things happening - Noel Neil almost getting hit by the movie screen in the Grand Ball room when it fell - George being bed by another guest at the con expense when we needed him for a TV appearance - a newspaper report that was done by a reporter who only saw a painting of a topless mermaid in the art show...

When it was all over we broke even!! (Which was all we wanted) and I think everyone at the con had fun...and we were tired....

Anyone who was at the con, drop me a line at floridafandom@floridafandom.com. Share some of your memories of this wild and weird con held over 35 years ago in South Florida.