Bob Welbaum: NFFC Honors Two Tokyo Disneyland Legends - Jun 4, 2008

Bob Welbaum: NFFC Honors Two Tokyo Disneyland Legends
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Toshio Kagami thanks the NFFC for his Disney Legend award

After the presentation and a round of photographs, Mr. Kagami spoke through an interpreter.

Toshio Kagami: Good morning, everybody. Today is a very joyful day for me because I was able to receive this very honorable award from the NFFC. Thank you.

And myself and Takahashi were named for this award, but I take this award as representative of all cast members here today because it�s everybody who has made today�s resort come true. And today I�m receiving this honorable award, but Takahashi�s name was mentioned earlier, our ex-CEO, he would be most joyful in receiving this award. Unfortunately Takahashi has passed away a couple of years ago, but I believe that he�s watching over us from Heaven today.

And definitely going through this last 25 years, Walt was definitely a wonderful person, but the fact that we were able to bring the Disney Resort to Japan and make it a success in Japan, I believe that we were able to bridge these two different cultures together.

And definitely the world has to be a peaceful place and I would like to see more and more of these bridges built across the world. But from another perspective, I believe that this resort, or this project, has brought economic success between the United States and Japan.

And to see this success today, I believe that we owe it to all the guests who came to the resort, including all of you at the Fan Club, so I would like to say �thank you� to everybody who has come today.

I would like to see your continued support from here on as well. Not to just the TDR, but to the Disney resorts around the world. Thank you very much.

Discuss It

-- Bob Welbaum

Bob Welbaum is a longtime Disneyana fan and NFFC member from the Dayton, Ohio area. Photos by NFFC member Ron Aubry.

-- June 4, 2008

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