Chicago Tribune

Tuesday, October 5, 2004

A Dishonorable Road Home

Mark Sidel

Mark Sidel teaches law at the University of Iowa and writes about philanthropy and the non-profit sector.

Ten days ago, Capt. James T. Kirk of "Star Trek" fame finally came home to Riverside, the town of 930 in eastern Iowa where, according to long and beloved local lore, he was born on March 22, 2228. The creator and executive producer of the original "Star Trek," Eugene "Gene" Roddenberry, had said Capt. Kirk was born in a small town in Iowa. So, town leaders thought years ago, why not Riverside? But in all these years, neither Capt. Kirk nor the actor who plays him, William Shatner, had ever come home.

Riverside needed Capt. Kirk. Like many towns throughout the Midwest--places like Sedan, Kan.; Norfolk, Neb.; and Perry, Iowa--Riverside has struggled with the decline of family farms, unemployment and the departure of its youth.

The notion that several hundred years into the future Riverside would bear a good and strong leader and he would put the town on the map was fanciful. But it made Riverside residents smile, and it spawned a small annual "Trek Fest" that provided a bit of fun.

The citizens of Riverside were stunned when Shatner turned up in a long black limousine trailed by camera crews on Sept. 21. They were delighted when he announced he was home to film "Invasion Iowa," a science-fiction movie.

Ten days of shooting took place in Riverside at local landmarks, actors and extras were hired, and the community warmly embraced its favorite son.

It was, of course, all a hoax, an elaborate game taking advantage of a little town that loved its fictional hero and the actor who played him. The 10 days of shooting was a trick for a television show that is supposed to be shown on Spike TV, a cable network.

Last month, Shatner stood before Riverside and announced his game, handing over a check for $12,000 to the Riverside Elementary School book fund and $100,000 to the town. Presumably he is to be paid more than that for the "reality" show in which he shows the world how he tricked the people who embraced him.

There are other ways for favorite sons and daughters to treat their real or fictional hometowns. Chicago's longtime television journalist and documentary film producer Bill Kurtis left southeast Kansas decades ago. But in recent years he has returned, investing millions in and around Sedan to revitalize a deserted downtown, help grow an arts community, and market the prairie for visitors.

Johnny Carson grew up in the small Midwestern town of Norfolk, Neb., performing as the "Great Carsoni." Carson doesn't often go home to Norfolk, but when he does it's not to make money off a town that proudly embraces him.

Carson has donated millions to Norfolk, endowing the regional cancer center and supporting the public library, a high school theater, the local community college, the arts center and other local activities.

Roberta Green grew up poor in the small town of Perry, Iowa, near Des Moines. Ten years ago, as a very wealthy Californian, she and her husband, Howard Ahmanson Jr., refurbished her town's fading but famous landmark hotel and reopened it to the acclaim of her hometown--at a cost of nearly $10 million. This month her philanthropy enables Perry to open a museum devoted to the immigrant experience in small-town America. It is fittingly located in Perry's restored 1904 Carnegie Library Building, another example of the power of giving in hometown America.

"I fell in love with the people of Riverside," Shatner said in a press release the day his hoax was announced. "And the hardest part of this whole experience was containing my empathy for the individuals who listened to and identified with the soap opera that we played in front of them."

Shatner need not embrace the small town that calls him its favorite son or shower philanthropy upon its citizens. He has the right to contain his empathy if he wishes. But he should not have capitalized upon his favorite-son status and manipulated a small town to make a profit from a hoax. Many years after leaving America's small towns, Bill Kurtis, Johnny Carson and Roberta Green Ahmanson chose honorable roads home. William Shatner could have chosen an honorable road too, and did not.