-I just found out about the passing of writer Russell Bates-which happened a few days ago. Russell was the creator of Ensign Dawson Walking Bear, a character from the STAR TREK THE ANIMATED SERIES episode “How Sharper Than A Serpent’s Tooth. ” Not only was he a co-writer of the episode, along with David Wise, but this episode was responsible for winning an Emmy Award ( the 1974-1975 Daytime Emmy in the area of “Outstanding Entertainment Children’s Series”). He was a Native American who’s lineage was from the Kiowa tribe.

-I had the privilege of being introduced to Russell via a group Facebook chat set up by Troy Beriner in January 2017. Troy had wanted to introduce us-being that I was the actor who portrayed Walking Bear in two episodes from STAR TREK NEW VOYAGES (“Mind Sifter” and “The Holiest Thing”-as well as one currently unreleased “Bread & Savagery”) in addition to, at the time, an upcoming episode with THE FEDERATION FILES called “Walking Bear, Running Wolf.” It was quite a thrill and Russell offered to give me some more background on the character, which I readily accepted. He also thanked me for bringing Walking Bear to life in those episodes-which I deeply appreciated. I sent him links to the episodes, as well as to “Walking Bear, Running Wolf” when it it was released online.

RUSSELL BATES WRITE UP ON NERDIER TIDES

-Unfortunately, I never got to meet him in person. He was a cat person like me so I’m sure that topic would’ve opened up a lot of stories. 🙂 Below is a link to a brief write up on Russell showcasing the TAS episode and Walking Bear. It was touching to see that a couple of pics of me as Walking Bear were included in this as well.

-Russell passed away on April 9 after a brief illness. He was 76 years old. Graveside services for Russell will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 18th at the Ft. Sill National Cemetery Pavilion near Elgin, Oklahoma.

-R.I.P. Russell….