WARREN — Nearly 70 years ago, John Zabrucky was a fifth-grade student in Warren City Schools who loved science fiction.

On Friday, he spoke to about 150 fifth- and sixth-grade students at Jefferson PK-8 School about turning that love of science fiction into a career making props primarily for the kinds of movies he grew up watching.

“All I ever wanted to be was an artist,” Zabrucky told the students.

Some of those pieces Zabrucky made for his company Modern Props are being shown through June 28 at the Medici Museum of Art in Howland for the exhibition “Sci-Fi + Hollywood: The Art of John Zabrucky.” He is in town to meet with the architects and exhibit design firm hired to help create the Museum of Science Fiction and Fantasy Arts in his hometown, and the more than 500 props he donated to the Trumbull County Historical Society in 2023 will be the foundation of that museum.

The Kent State University graduate also will be joined by his best friend, Devo founder Gerald V. Casale, for a program about their experiences at Kent State during the May 4 shootings in 1970, their involvement in each others’ careers and their nearly 60-year friendship.

Zabrucky said his childhood passions didn’t make his grade school years easy.

“If you didn’t play sports, you were less than nothing,” he said. “All I was interested in was art and science. The rest of the time I tried to just hide out from gym class.”

Those interests ultimately led to a bachelor of arts and a master’s degree from Kent State State University and his successful career, but he didn’t find immediate success.

He decided to follow his girlfriend at the time to California in the mid-1970s.

“As soon as I got to L.A., I realized I’d made what I thought was a big mistake,” Zabrucky said.

He didn’t have any money and wasn’t able to focus on his art. While visiting his girlfriend on the set of a television show she was working on, he laughed when one of the props melted under the hot studio lights.

His chuckle was heard by the show’s producer, and when she questioned him about his reaction, Zabrucky told her that “in his sleep” he could build something better than that. Instead of getting kicked off the set, the producer gave him a chance to prove what he said, an encounter that ultimately led to the formation of Modern Props.

Over more than 40 years, Zabrucky’s work appeared in “Blade Runner,” “Men in Black,” “Total Recall,” “Batman Returns,” “Ghostbusters,” “Spider-Man 2” and many “Star Trek” properties.

Students saw photos of some of his creations, a video from a piece that NBC’s “Today” show aired when Zabrucky closed Modern Props and peppered him with questions about the movies and television shows they knew.