Las Positas College will celebrate the 60th birthday of the late Kim Peek, the mega-savant who inspired the Oscar-winning film “Rain Man,” on Monday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m. in Room 2420 of the Multi-Disciplinary Building. The celebration will feature a documentary film and guest presenter Fran Peek, Kim’s father. The event is free and open to the public. A $5 donation is requested; parking is $2.
Before Kim’s death in 2009, Kim and Fran Peek were frequent visitors to Las Positas College and honorary members of the college’s Psychology Club and chapter of the Psi Beta National Honor Society, according to Psychology Instructor Ernest Jones, Ph.D.
Kim Peek, who would have turned sixty this year, was the inspiration for screenwriter Barry Morrow’s Academy Award winning movie “Rain Man.” “Although diagnosed with mental retardation and autistic-like behaviors as an infant, Kim had a prodigious memory and was one of the most extraordinary minds ever studied,” said Jones.
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“Kim Peek was the ‘Mt. Everest of memory.’ I doubt a person like him, with such unique and massive memory, will ever come along again,” commented Darold Treffert, Ph.D., regarded as the leading authority on savant syndrome.
The Las Positas College Department of Psychology has brought other world-renowned speakers and events to the campus and Tri-Valley community including: Temple Grandin, portrayed in an award winning HBO movie and regarded as the world’s most accomplished and best-known adult with autism; William C. Dement, M.D. Ph.D., the world’s leading authority on sleep and regarded as the “Father of Sleep Medicine;” and Dr. John Ratey, best-selling author and associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
