This is Emily Gibson dispatching to you from the year 1938, the place Alaska, where Harold Gillam, a Pan Am pilot has rescued three polar bear cubs from the Arctic Ocean. Harold found the cubs floating on an ice cake when he was flying along the Arctic coast. The pups looked so plaintive and seemed so alone that he parked his flying boat in the frigid water, coaxed them aboard and brought them home. The three cubs are currently residing in the Gillam household and, his wife tells us, tearing up their flower garden and terrorizing the children. Pan Am is looking for a new home for the rambunctious fur balls, at the explicit request of Mrs. Gillam. So far they’ve identified ninety takers, ranging from a college dormitory to the Brooklyn Zoo. Stay tuned to find out where this strange cargo will land.

Moving forward to the year 2013, the Pan Am Records Headquarters has been buzzing with activity. Beatrice Skokan, Manuscripts Librarian, gave a presentation on Pan Am and the Jet Age at the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association annual conference held in Washington, D.C., in March. Marie Hanewinckel, Student Assistant Extraordinaire, has almost finished separating in-house newsletters and annual reports for itemized cataloging. Brooke Cathey, Student Assistant and Master of Printed Materials, is rapidly sorting Pan Am brochures, timetables, directories and press kits. Cory Czajkowski, Project Assistant and Audiovisual and Graphic Material Wrangler, is in the process of corralling all of the Audiovisual and Graphic Materials in the collection. Finally, Emily Gibson, your own reporter and Series Sculptor, has found homes for all 27,000 folders in the Pan American World Airways, Inc. records collection, with, I am happy to report, no damage to flower gardens and no terrorized children.