Tradition celebrates anniversary
The United States Postal Service was at the Armstrong Air and Space Museum midday Tuesday, but Clerk Jack Richard wasn't there to deliver mail. He was canceling commemorative covers on Moon Day— or the day Asronaut Neil Armstrong of Wapakoneta became the first person to step foot on the moon on July 20, 1969.
The museum had been doing this every year since before it existed.
According to Rex, a committee was formed while Armstrong was in space to discuss ways to celebrate him, and the first commemorative cancelation covers came out in the fall of 1969.
Cancelation covers are commemorative envelopes with stamps the USPS cancels out.
"There's a group of individuals that are collectors of these," Logan Rex, curator and communications director at the museum, said. "We do them every year."
Because the Summer Moon Festival was Year of the Frogmen, the cover features the frogmen in the middle of their recovery operation with the Columbia module. Local artist T.L. Blosser designed the art, a watercolor theme with stencil etching.
"We've done some work with this artist in the past, and we've been pretty pleased with the artwork thus far," he said. "It definitely turned out well."
The purpose of the event is to ruin the stamp so the envelope can't be used.
"For commemorative purposes, they cancel it out and people have that cancelation on the side as
well," Rex said
He said the covers are a coveted commodity, and there are a limited number available at the museum's gift shop for $2/ envelope.
Rex believes the reason the covers are so popular is because they combine people's passions for collecting things with an event ingrained in history.
"A lot of people can connect to the moon landing, where they were" he said.
The museum has tried to keep the event on July 20 every year.
Richard has been a part of this tradition almost every year for the last 27.
"It's a neat thing," he said. "We have people that we see every year that come here from different areas of the state."
Richard also enjoys the Summer Moon Festival, listening to and talking with astronauts.
"They tell you really neat stories about stuff you had never thought of, and I'm interested in the whole space thing," he said.