Dr. Don Rhoden

It’s a big city, isn’t it? Lots of big buildings.

As Clark Kent studied his surroundings upon his return to the Daily Planet after taking a fall in his apartment, he expressed feelings of awe at the expanse of the city that lay before him and at the height of the buildings within it. Of course, that's a natural first reaction from anyone contemplating a city as large as Metropolis. But rarely, however, do we think of the necessary foundations upon which those buildings stand... foundations that make it possible for those building to reach high into the sky.

And so it is with most things. At a recent dinner in New York to remember and celebrate the life of George Reeves, many of the guests mentioned TAC: The Magazine, and they thanked me for the part I played in renewing their interest in George and for the depth and breadth of the information found within the pages of TAC. But here too we must look to a foundation... the base upon which the magazine rests. And that foundation is Dr. Don Rhoden. It was Don who took the initiative and who made the first attempt to locate and bring together those of us who will forever admire George Reeves and thrill to the Adventures of Superman.

Granted, previous research on George Reeves had been done. By the 1980s most of us had read Gary Grossman's book, Superman: Serial to Cereal and the several magazine articles delving into the fascinating series, but each of us read those pages within our own Fortress of Solitude and with the mistaken belief that he/she was the only person who craved to know more. And so it remained until Don Rhoden made his heroic effort to seek us out and to begin the network that has since grown into a worldwide web of men and women... like ourselves, but advanced to the absolute peak of curiosity regarding the Adventures of Superman.

Don's efforts were extraordinary indeed. Years before the Internet made personal networking fairly easy, Don set out to find individual fans and to bring us together. Don created that network and put together a magazine we could all enjoy and from which we could learn.

Don eventually passed the magazine on to me, but it was his initial efforts that set the tone and inspired me and many others to continue his work for years to come. Today TAC has grown from a magazine of sixteen issues to a website of hundreds of pages with thousands of readers. None of that would have ever happened had it not been for Dr. Don Rhoden's idea and hard work. And so I am delighted to enter his name into the George Reeves Hall of Fame at Glass House Presents.

Jim Nolt

July 24, 2009