Myrna Culbreath

Myrna Culbreath (born 1 June 1938) was an early Star Trek fan. Before becoming involved with Sondra Marshak she was the owner and founder of The Culbreath School, a private academy in Colorado. She communicated frequently with Marshak, who then lived in Baton Rouge, concerning Star Trek. As Marshak did not feel comfortable with written correspondence and long-distance telephone charges were astronomical in those days, she persuaded Culbreath to sell her school and move in with her.
She also co-wrote and edited some commercial Star Trek books such as the early collection Star Trek: The New Voyages. With her writing partner, Marshak, she wrote four professionally published Star Trek novels, The Price of the Phoenix and The Fate of the Phoenix (for Bantam Books) and The Prometheus Design and Triangle (for Pocket Books). The pair also had a couple of stories in the New Voyages collections of short stories that many fans felt were the closest fandom ever came to professionally published slash.
In the anthology Star Trek: The New Voyages 2, Culbreath and Marshak announced plans to write a novel with Nichelle Nichols, to be called Uhura!. Nichelle Nichols referred to this book as The Uhura Connection. "Someone asked about a book [Nichols] was to work on, called the "Uhura Connection", with Marshak and Culbreath. She said she had had a disagreement with them, but someday would write the book herself. - comments at Aucon '81, reported by Elizabeth Holden in The Final Frontier #7. They claim that getting started on this book "set her and us off on a NASA trek which helped to shape not only Uhura! but this New Voyages, with its NASA connection." (One of the stories in New Voyages 2 was written by NASA engineer Jesco von Puttkamer.) According to Ian McLean, of the website Have Phaser, Will Travel, "the book would have been a mix of fact and fiction about Nichols and Uhura, with Uhura exploring the life of her ancestor, Nichols, who had worked with NASA, among other things." (In the 1970s, Nichols worked with NASA to recruit astronauts from minority groups.) Marshak and Culbreath also planned a book called Mr. Spock's Guide to the Planet Vulcan (circa 1979), according to the "About the Authors" note in The Fate of the Phoenix. 
Star Trek: The Lost Books.
Culbreath was also the author of the libertarian/Star Trek zine, The Fire Bringer.
According to her account in Jeff Ayers' Star Trek: Voyages of the Imagination, she made a number of attempts at writing a Star Trek episode spec script, with Roddenberry's encouragement. Her preferred title for the script was "Triangle." Once renewal of the television series proved unlikely, Roddenberry introduced Culbreath to fan writer Jacqueline Lichtenberg, who then introduced Culbreath to Sondra Marshak.Jeff Ayers, Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion. New York: Pocket Books, 14 Nov. 2006, pp. 11-13. 
Today, Culbreath has returned to education. She is the developer of PhonicsOpoly, The Phonics Game, and other games designed to teach children to read through phonics.LearnByGames FAQ at archive.org, accessed 2020-03-17.Apparently the promotional material for her phonics methods is somewhat outrageous. See Susan O'Hanian, Will Myrna Culbreath, author of PhonicsOpoly, take the $1,000,000 Challenge? and Greg Cynaumon's Study Doesn't Exist, blog entry on I Speak of Dreams, dated June 20, 2004. Other than appearances on the Zoh Hieronimus podcast Future Talk in 2004, where she was introduced as a well-known television and radio host (she explained she had frequently "substituted for a nationally syndicated radio host," but did not mention for whom)Myrna Culbreath interview on Future Talk, hosted by Zohara Hieronimus, 2004-04-17., Myrna Culbreath has not given any interviews or published any new fiction under that name.
==Frequent Con Guest of Honor==
Sondra Marshak, Myrna Culbreath, and Mrs. Anna Tornheim Hassan (Marshak's mother) were frequent con guests of honor.
Some examples:
* TreKon (1976, 1977)
* Palm Beach Con (1975)
* Space-Con (1977)
* Schuster Star Trek Conventions/1977 (September) New York City Schuster Star Trek Convention (1977)
* Schuster Star Trek Conventions/1977 Philadelphia Schuster Star Trek Convention (1977)
* Schuster Star Trek Conventions/1978 New York City (February) Schuster Star Trek Convention (1978)
* Schuster Star Trek Conventions/1978 Atlanta Schuster Star Trek Convention (1978)
==A 1977 Bio and Description==
From the TreKon 1977 program book: 
==Political Activity==
Culbreath was a member of the Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative/Libertarian youth activist group, in the late 1960s. Libertarian organizer Gene Berkman, owner of Renaissance Books in Riverside, California, remembers:
==See also==
Interview with Myrna Culbreath April 17, 2004 podcast from Zohara Online.
==References==
Category:Fanwriters