This was Don's FIRST button. All hand made. Only 100 made. The idea was that MVS the turkey was KING. He gave me his own "History of the Turkey Button" notes: I started attending SHARE at Meeting 51 in Boston and was very impressed and overwhelmed with the amount of information and help available. I attended SCIDS and saw a few buttons. When I asked where I could get some, I was always told to just look for anyone carrying a bag. Talk about finding a needle in a haystack. I did find a few and caught the BUTTON BUG. I decided to try my hand at it and showed up at New Orleans with my first one. It was a this yellow button with a turkey head wearing a crown with the letters MVS. Not very impressive but I did sell 100. I spent about 3 weeks making those things with the Badge-A-Minute. Boy, did my hands get sore making them. I even had my kids helping while we were watching TV. We had button parts all over the house. I used the Turkey because at that time, I was running MVT (anyone remember that system?) and was just getting into MVS; the MVS Performance Group was using the BC (Comic Strip) Turkey in their handouts and I thought he was cute. I then started making the TURKEY button with a theme design based on the city where SHARE was held. The first one, for San Francisco, had him riding a cable car. It went over so well that I started making more each time. After the SECOND EDITION, I finally gave up on the DO-IT-YOURSELF operation; it was just too hard on the hands. Starting again at New Orleans, I made a limited number of larger size, hand colored versions and numbered each one. These SPECIAL EDITION buttons are NEVER sold but given to the officers and project leaders as my simple "THANKS for your effort." Also at New Orleans, I had made a few T-Shirts with the same design. A few of us went out and bought color paint and painted the shirts. After that, I had the shirts made up already colored. Because of rising costs, the last of the shirts were made for the 35th anniversary meeting with all the different TURKEY designs in 6 colors. In addition to the TURKEY button, I started to make other buttons and as of SHARE 78, I have made over 600 different designs. I used to walk around SCIDS in a bright yellow leisure suit so I could be found easily. At New York City, I got a little tired of walking and sat down at a table for a few minutes; people started coming to the table to get buttons and ever since then, I have just set up a table at SCIDS, usually just inside the entrance. I have really enjoyed making them and seeing them go over so well. I hope everyone has had as much enjoyment with them. At SHARE 65, I had registration badge #1, and started going around SCIDS and welcoming attendees, and handed out my "Welcomed by #1" sticker. At the 35th anniversary meeting, also in New Orleans, I haded out my 10,000 #1 Sticker. That too seems to have created a following as many attendees search me out to get their #1 sticker. Don Marquardt, SHARE Registration #1, Installation ACD. Additional information about Don was not completely accurate in the March, 2005, edition; the comments in it's Button 1098 were revised, below, as that was not even one of his buttons, and he was incorrectly called a commercial button maker; far from it: Buttons 1092 thru 1098 were loose buttons created by Don that had not been databased.. I have no idea of the dates of these, but Don was a mass producer of buttons creator, who would make several hundered copies of 10 to 15 new buttons for each meeting so that everyone could 'buy" a button to take home from SHARE. But it ultimately came to look like money-making operation, which was completely the antithesis of the original concept of SHARE buttons: a button with a great idea about SHARE and IBM and our users, made in small quantity, NOT FOR COMMERCIAL GAIN. But Don actually never made a penny from the 108 buttons he made; button profits subsidized buttons for several of the SHARE groups, a cake that was served at SCIDS for the JES2 group at some anniversary of HASP, and candy and roses for the SHARE HQ staff women, always with a card simply stating "Thanks for all your effors. It is greatly appreciated. SHARE couldn't exist without your efforts." The staff tried for 8-9 years to find out who was sending them, but only found out when one of the ladies saw me walking back to the hotel at a San Francisco session, with the roses that showed up that evening at headquarters. Also gag gits were purchased for the SHARE Presidents. But the bulk of the button revenue, over $16,000, that Don collected, was doanated to the St. Jude Hospital in the name of SHARE.
