Happily ganked from Jaquandor:

History has already recorded that Barack Obama was the first black president of the United States, but personally I think it’s important to note that he’s also our first Trekkie president… at least the first who’s willing to own up to it! Look at that grin… he’s as thrilled as any of my fellow nerds to be standing next to a pop-cultural legend, the lovely Nichelle Nichols, a.k.a. Lt. Uhura from the original Star Trek.

For the record, Nichelle was the first celebrity I ever encountered. It was at a one-day Star Trek mini-con held at the Salt Lake Airport Hilton back in ’87 or ’88, during my freshman year of college. To place that in some context, the last Trek movie to play in theaters had been Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home — that’s the one with the whales, for you civilians out there — the previous year, and Star Trek: The Next Generation had just gotten off to a bumpy start in television syndication. (I didn’t think it would survive its first season, to be honest. Boy, was I wrong!) I’ll admit to being a wee bit awestruck when I found myself standing on the other side of an autograph table from a woman I’d been watching on TV since before I could remember, but to my everlasting gratitude, Nichelle turned out to be as warm, gracious, friendly, and beautiful in person as she’d ever been on screen. It looks to me like none of that has changed…