As any Star Trek fan knows, sometimes you hail someone you want to talk to and that person doesn’t respond. Sometimes, that means they are about to launch an attack on your starship; other times, it just means you don’t get the interview you were hoping to set up.
Unfortunately, when I hailed Terry Farrell — Cedar Rapids native and famed Star Trek: Deep Space Nine actor — to talk about her upcoming appearance at TrekFest in Riverside, Iowa, she didn’t respond. The hope had been to get some details about her childhood in Iowa. There is precious little about such things online. Here’s what you can learn from IMDb:
“Terry Farrell was born on Nov. 19, 1963 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. At age 15, she became a foreign exchange student to Mexico, and, from that experience, she decided she would like to live a more adventurous life in the big city. She sent several photos to a modeling agency and then, at age 17, dropped out of high school and became a model in New York.”
For the first six of seven seasons of Deep Space Nine, which aired from 1993 to 1999, Farrell played Jadzia Dax, a member of the Trill species. Some — but by no means all— Trill are joined beings, with a humanoid individual serving as host for a symbiont being. Those symbionts tend to outlive their hosts many times over, and as Deep Space Nine begins, Jadzia is the latest host for Dax — a symbiont with a long and arguably checkered history. Jadzia was killed at the end of season six (there are competing narratives about why this was so) and a new character, Ezri Dax, replaced her aboard the station. Farrell, meanwhile, became a costar on Ted Danson’s sitcom Becker.
While TrekFest is an annual celebration of the future birth of James T. Kirk (in 2233), the captain of the USS Enterprise portrayed by William Shatner in the original Star Trek TV series that premiered on Sept. 8, 1966. (Trekkies now celebrate Sept. 8 as “Star Trek Day.”) Farrell is one of a number of significant Trek actors who have real-life connections to Iowa.
They include (in order of appearance in Star Trek series and movies) Walter Koenig, who played Pavel Chekov in the original series and attended Grinnell College before transferring to UCLA; Stephen Collins, who played Commander Willard Decker in Star Trek: The Motion Picture and was born in Des Moines; Farrell; and Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager (and more recently in Star Trek: Prodigy) and who was born and raised in Dubuque.
Travis Riggan, president of the Riverside Area Community Club and TrekFest chairman (visit the TrekFest website and you will find the name of the festival rendered in a variety of ways — two words, one word with a capital F, one word with a lowercase f) provided details about the annual festival with Little Village via email.
“We have trademarked and been recognized by Paramount Pictures and the Star Trek Universe as the Future Birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk,” Riggan said. “Riverside’s town celebration brings in an additional thousand people into our community to celebrate the uniqueness of our festival. So [other places] have a summer fest or something basic, but Riverside, we step that up a notch with ours being out of this world!”
The “Future Birthplace” designation has an impact on the community year-round, not just during the festival.
“Daily, due to the claim to fame of being the birthplace, we have, on average, 20 people stop each day and get pictures of our attractions,” Riggan said. “These people come from all over the world and visit, and some may even say our small town of Riverside may be the mecca of where Trek starts. It is a grassroots festival that every Trekkie or sci-fi buff needs to check out!”
Riggan has been involved in the festival for a long time, and said he’s looking forward to Farrell’s appearance.
“Some of my memories of our festival include having Chekov [Koenig], Sulu [George Takei], and Uhura [Nichelle Nichols] all in attendance several years ago. That year, our festival was packed throughout the town and the TrekFest events. This will be the first time Jadzia Dax [Farrell], a local Iowan, will be in attendance. She was one of the fan favorites on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and continues embracing the Trek community and fans. This year is also exciting for some of the local musicians we will be having in attendance.”
This year’s TrekFest is scheduled for June 27-29 in Riverside — here’s hoping I can hail down Farrell then. You can find the full schedule and list of guests and performers at trekfest.org.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s June 2024 issue.