The G7 Economic Summit that was held at Rice in 1990 has become the stuff of campus legend. Most of these legends have to do with either security preparations or borderline insane efforts at sprucing things up for the dignitaries. The Woodson has quite a fine collection from this event but not long ago I was thrilled to have a look at something that isn’t in our holdings.
FE&P employee Richard Stearman has been around a long time—he came to Rice in 1987 as a mechanic and is now a construction services manager—so when he told me he had a scrapbook I could scan images from, I jumped at the chance to get ahold of it.
The scrapbook chronicles Richard’s own experience of the Summit and I saw several things I’ve never seen before, including pictures from the post-summit picnic at the University of Houston. I was utterly enchanted, though, by his photos of the construction of the special air-conditioned platform that was built in the quad for the politicians. (It was July!)
For those of you unfamiliar with this episode, here’s a Chronicle article about the last minute effort to keep the big wheels cool:
My favorite picture is this one. The graciously offered thanks were well deserved.
Bonus: Here’s the crew, with Richard at the far left. Some of these guys are still around, although perhaps with a few more pounds and maybe a bit less hair.
