Biography | Card Walker — The Dedication He Read Under Spaceship Earth

On Sunday 24 October 1982, at eleven in the morning, Westminster chimes opened the dedication of EPCOT Center.

Card Walker walked to a podium in front of Spaceship Earth.

Lillian Disney stood with him.

Delegates had brought water from rivers and seas to pour into the fountain behind the sphere.

Walker read the bronze plaque aloud.

The inscribed words are still on the park grounds.

To all who come to this place of joy, hope, and friendship, welcome.

EPCOT Center is inspired by Walt Disney's creative vision.

Here human achievements are celebrated through imagination, the wonders of enterprise, and concepts of a future that promises new and exciting benefits for all.

May EPCOT Center entertain, inform, and inspire, and above all may it instill a new sense of belief and pride in man's ability to shape a world that offers hope to people everywhere.

He signed the plaque as chairman and chief executive officer of Walt Disney Productions, dated 24 October 1982.

The park had already opened to the public on 1 October.

The twenty-fourth was the official dedication after three weeks of pavilion ceremonies.

Walker had asked the question that started the project in 1974: what are we going to do about EPCOT.

Eight years later the sphere was the answer the company could finance and open.

The plaque has been moved and remounted near the entrance.

The words are his.

A visitor who stands under the geodesic dome is standing where he read them.

Photo: Katie Rommel-Esham, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons