August 17, 1933: Born on this day, Gene Kranz NASA's second flight director, best known for overseeing the Mission Control team during the first lunar landing and his essential role bringing Apollo 13 back safely.

On this occasion, a little-known Kranz anecdote. 1/5

Kranz tells a story from the Mercury days at the Cape. NASA public affairs officer Shorty Powers would often appear among the flight controllers with a guest in tow searching for a NASA employee from a particular state to introduce to a visiting member of congress or senator. 2/5

Kranz said the engineers would pause and then say, "sure, that guy in the corner is from Oklahoma!” and Shorty Powers would proudly introduce a local boy made good and then arrange to have a photo taken with NASA engineer with the political VIP. 3/5

A few weeks later the same thing would happen again.

"That guy over in the corner is from Delaware!”

And again.

"That guy over in the corner is from New Mexico!”

But it was always the same guy....

Everyone except Powers and the politician were in on it. 4/5

The star NASA employee was actually from Wales. And he ended up having his photo in local newspapers all over the country as a result.

Only after a year did Shorty Powers realize what had been going on.

Thanks to @dmscott for this story which he obtained from Kranz himself. 5/5