Wednesday, November 27, 2013

The Nimoy Award for 1967 goes to...

...Miss Nancyann Hiera!


In 1967, a group called the Leonard Nimoy National Association of Fans1 was launched, and it became "one of the most active and fastest growing fan clubs in the country" as people rallied around their passion for the actor who portrays Mr. Spock in Star Trek. The association's president was Peggye Vickers of Garland, Texas.

In the first year, the association presented The Nimoy Award to Nancyann Hiera of Chicago, Illinois, who was honored for being the most active member of the LNNAF.

This photo of Hiera receiving her plaque from Nimoy appears in the May 1968 issue of TV Star Parade magazine.2 The bulk of the magazine article consists of Hiera's long letter to Vickers, thanking her for the honor.

Here are some excerpts from that letter:
  • "Oh, Peggye, how can I thank you?!! Receiving the Nimoy Award is one of the most thrilling things that has ever happened to me! I really don't know how to tell you how happy you've made me! THANK YOU, OH THANK YOU SO MUCH, PEGGYE!!!"
  • "After a short wait, in which we had chewed our fingernails down to the third knuckle, an elevator door opened, and we all looked up — it was him! He was wearing a dark suit with a kind of turtle neck affair. A tremendous black cape was slung over his arm. We were all sitting on a small red velvet couch when he approached us. We all froze, and as a result, we probably had expressions on our faces akin to the Three Stooges."
  • "With that, I placed in his hands a rubber plucked chicken, guilded for the occasion, and a plaque which read, 'To Leonard Nimoy goes the coveted HENNY AWARD, 1967.' He was chuckling warmly, and it was at this time that he acquired our new nick name for him, which is 'Dimples.' (It's not too hard to figure out...)"
  • "...he looked at me and asked somewhat teasingly, 'Do you know what the Nimoy Award is?' I nearly started to cry."

Footnotes
1. The club later shortened its name to the Leonard Nimoy Association of Fans. According to Fanlore, some of the "chapters" of LNAF included Nimoyan-Spock's Scribes, the Nimoyan Federation, and the Leonard Nimoy Star Trek Fan Club of Concerned Fans. Among the publications of LNAF was an anthology titled Spockulations, which, apparently, had only one issue.
2. Other articles in that issue, which includes no fewer than 12 advertisements for brassieres and bosom modification, are:
  • "Lorne Greene's Greatest Miracle"
  • "Nick Adams: Suicide or Heartbreak?"
  • "Private Affairs of Hollywood's Star Families" (featuring photos of the families of Ben Gazzara, Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner and Michael Landon)
  • "Kathy Garver reveals Untold Tales about her TV family"

2 comments:

  1. Mom just showed me this. She was only seventeen in that picture, still in high school. (Catholic high school no less--yep, Bible in the morning, sci-fi in the afternoon.) She was so happy when she received this award, as she and her friends all worked very hard on Spock's People (her fan club's name). This was a big achievement for her!����

    She came across this article at random a couple hours ago. She had told me many times over the years about her fan club, and she even has a copy of the actual magazine somewhere, but we haven't found it in years. This is the first time we've ever seen this picture online. Thank you for this post, it brought back some good memories for my mom!

    Also, I thought you may've made a typo calling her "Nancyann," since her respective first and middle names are "Nancy" and "Ann," but mom explained, in certain situations, such as with her fan club, she liked to write "Nancyann" because it was fancy and formal-sounding.��

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    1. Though I mentioned she and her friends worked very hard on Spock's People, I should have said her friends were very supportive of her industriousness, as mom did virtually all of the work herself. Most if not all her friends were members, and she said her mom did help a little, but the grand majority of putting this club together was mom's doing. She really did earn this award on her own.

      She told me about how she and group of maybe seven or eight friends, her mom, and one or two of her mom's friends, drove to the airport to meet Mr. Nimoy, and how, when she first learned she was receiving the award, everyone was shocked my very introverted, very boring mom managed to develop a fan club worthy of an award from "Mr. Spock" himself. XD <3

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