Kit Bond - Missouri Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rock

Missouri Apollo 17 Goodwill Moon Rock

In the last few days of his long political career, Kit Bond through his staff, solved a mystery that had intrigued the press, Missouri politicians and members of academia for much of 2010. Missouri state officials had wrongly believed up until June 8, 2010, that they had the very rare and very valuable Apollo 17 lunar sample display with the "goodwill moon rock" at its state museum, when what they had was the Missouri Apollo 11 lunar sample display with the so called "moon rocks". On June 8, 2010, the state woke up to a reality that their 5 million dollar piece of Apollo 17 history was missing. In cleaning out his Senatorial office in December 2010, it was uncovered that Kit Bond had inadvertently taken the Apollo 17 lunar sample display when he left the Governor's Office, and kept it for decades. Bond eventually returned the display to the current governor of Missouri. Kit Bond was one of four former governors who each took their state lunar sample displays upon leaving office, the other three were the former governor's of Colorado, West Virginia, and Arkansas.

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    “Then they seen it, the old Missouri River shinin’ in the moon and across it the lights of St. Louis.”
    —Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)

    “blue bead on the wick,
    there’s that in me that
    burns and chills, blackening
    my heart with its soot,
    I think sometimes not Apollo heard me
    but a different god.”
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    “The moon gives you light,
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    My heart gives you love.”
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    —Unknown. The Cauld Lad of Hilton or, The Wandering Spectre (l. 2–8)