Gene Roddenberry offered words of encouragement to a student

Gene Roddenberry had legions of fans who thanked him for creating Star Trek.

And often, those fans wrote him to thank him for the series and telling him what it meant to him. One fan in particular didn’t reach out to him himself, but his teacher did on his behalf. In April 1975, according to Letters of Note, a New York school teacher wrote a letter to Gene Roddenberry to tell him about Roger, a student with a severe learning disability. Roger loved reading science fiction stories and was making a lot of progress in his learning. So his teacher thought some words of encouragement from Roddenberry, who was his idol, would help.

Despite his busy schedule, Roddenberry took time to draft a lengthy letter to Roger to tell him how he felt about books and what they meant to him. Roddenberry also shared that the two had something more in common than a love of books.

Gene Roddenberry told Roger of a childhood illness that turned him to books.

In his letter, Roddenberry told Roger that he used to think life would have been better without any physical problems so he could have become a football star. But he knew then that his love of books gave him more happiness than anything else.

Just imagine Roger’s happiness at reading such a letter from his idol. Forty-eight years ago. Roddenberry proved that he didn’t just have a love for all things science fiction and thought about how humanity could improve; he truly cared about people. And I’d like to think that Roger still has that letter, perhaps framed and hanging somewhere in his house.