1 20 55 https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/0982d06f9a2f92fbf7fe2f9136d901e2.mp4 a9de7829384dba075a9196f77cfcdd6e https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/ad0d0594064e8fa1c25d3be91a009043.pdf 162b575cf68ca5c82dd758b4c47c8b4e PDF Text Text Oklahomans for Equality Oral History Interview with Bob Inglish, Mike Green and Dennis Neill Interview Conducted by Kerry Lewis Date: May 5, 2003 Transcribed By: Dennis Neill using Reduct.Video, March 14, 2026 Restrictions: Interviewee requested: N/A Oklahomans for Equality History Project 621 E. 4th Street Tulsa, OK. 74120 918.743.4297 historyproject@okeq.org 1 �Discover the early days of Tulsa's LGBTQ+ activism through the personal stories of key founders. This episode explores how the community built a social, legal, and health infrastructure amidst societal resistance and growing awareness of HIV/AIDS. Main Topics Covered:         Origins of TOHR and OHR in Tulsa (1980s) Community challenges and societal attitudes Formation of advocacy, social, and health programs The role of gay bars and underground networks Personal experiences of coming out and safety concerns The impact of HIV/AIDS on community activism Milestones: First events, legal battles, and social acceptance Resources and support organizations then and now Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction to Tulsa's LGBTQ+ activist roots 00:34 - Personal backgrounds of Dennis, Bob, Mike 01:12 - How and when the community organized in Tulsa 02:06 - Early social hubs: Bars and clandestine meetings 03:04 - Challenges and societal perceptions in 1980s Tulsa 04:16 - Community safety and personal disclosures 05:55 - Formation of Tulsa's LGBTQ+ advocacy group 06:57 - Establishing social activities and their significance 08:14 - National awareness and influence from outside Tulsa 09:55 - The community's response to Stonewall and pride events 10:53 - Visibility and openness issues in the community 12:06 - Overcoming societal fears and the early fight for rights 13:31 - Personal safety, coming out, and legal discrimination 15:07 - Attitudes toward the LGBTQ+ community in Tulsa 16:00 - The role of community support and opposition 17:23 - The importance of social activities beyond bars 2 �18:53 - Early efforts in education and health services 19:55 - Community milestones: Growth and societal change 21:20 - Encountering hate, violence, and the bravery to stand out 23:52 - The significance of making history and feeling of impact 25:09 - Responding to societal prejudice and the evolution of acceptance 26:30 - The pioneering moments during the AIDS crisis 28:01 - Community outreach, resources, and forming alliances 29:49 - Reflections on why OHR and TOHR were critical 31:19 - The influence of legal, social, and cultural shifts 32:45 - Social programs: Sports, dances, and community events 34:27 - Responding to the AIDS epidemic: education and activism 36:44 - Community response to initial activism efforts 38:24 - Internal community conflicts and how they evolved 40:34 - The importance of social support and combating loneliness 42:14 - Fundraising events, health clinics, and advocacy work 44:40 - Building social networks and the importance of social activities 48:55 - The community's response to HIV/AIDS and health initiatives 50:04 - Early reactions to AIDS in Tulsa and community education 52:01 - How epidemic shifted community behaviors and perceptions 54:11 - Ongoing issues: Safe sex, relationships, and legal protections 56:34 - The cultural significance of marriage and family for gay Oklahomans 57:23 - The continued evolution of community activism and health issues Bob Inglish, Mike Green, Dennis Neill oral history interview May 5, 2003 Kerry Lewis: Hi, I'm Kerry Lewis. I'm with the TOHR's Gay History Project. I'm here today on May 4th interviewing Dennis Neill, Bob Inglish, and Mike Green. They are three of the original organizers of TOHR in the early years, and so we're going to begin by talking to them a little bit about who they are and then also how OHR and TOHR began. Well, good afternoon. What I'd like to do is to begin by asking you a little bit about who you are and what you do and things like that. So we'll start with you, Dennis. Dennis, if you wouldn't mind, let us know when you were born. Dennis Neill: I was born on March 18, 1952. Kerry Lewis: And that makes you? Dennis Neill: I'm 51. Kerry Lewis: You're 51 years old. And have you always been from Tulsa? Dennis Neill: I was born in Ponca City and then went to school at Stillwater and University of Texas Law School. Kerry Lewis: And then did you move to Tulsa after that? Dennis Neill: Right. Dennis Neill: About what year was that? Dennis Neill: In May of 1977, I joined the law firm of Conner and Winters. 3 �Kerry Lewis: And you are and have been single and you have no children? Dennis Neill: Well, I have a partner, but I do have no children. That's correct. Kerry Lewis: And your profession? Dennis Neill: Well, I'm a lawyer by training, but have responsibility for the technology and office assets of Samson Investment Company, an oil and gas company headquartered in Tulsa. Kerry Lewis: We'll probably go back in a minute and ask you more about what you were doing at the time, the OHR beginning, et cetera. But I'll probably just move on now to Bob. Bob, could you give me your date of birth and how old you are? Bob Inglish: 1954, 49. I grew up in Okmulgee and practiced law there out of school and still do. But I've always lived in Tulsa since getting out of school. Kerry Lewis: And Mike? Mike Green: I was born June 25, 1932. Born right here in Tulsa. And I grew up in Tulsa, graduated Central High School, went to OU, got my BA there. And then went in the Army, spent two years in the military. Married while I was in the military, met my colleague, sweetheart. And we had two children. And returned to Tulsa when I got out of the Army. Was here for about a couple of years with my brother in the oil field supply business. And then went to Waterloo, Iowa, where I worked with my father-in-law in the retail clothing business. From there I went to Tempe, Arizona, where I went to school and studied writing, creative writing. Then returned to Tulsa, once again in the oil field supply business, for about five years. Then went to night Law School and started practicing law in 1966. Retired one year ago and moved to Palm Springs with my partner. By the way, I got divorced. Kerry Lewis: My understanding from your answer is that back in, say, 1980, in that time period, you were practicing law. You were in private practice? Mike Green: In private practice. Kerry Lewis: What kind of law did you practice? Mike Green: I always say general practice. When I first started practicing law, I was one of the three Tulsa County public defenders that was appointed. I did that for a couple of years. I always did a lot of criminal work, did domestic work, personal injury work, just general practice. Kerry Lewis: And were you working at that time with a firm or individually? Mike Green: There were three of us that did form a firm, but it was back in the 70s. That was for about five years. So I think I was probably by myself at the time in the 80s. Kerry Lewis: What about you, Bob? Say, around 1979, 80, in that time period, what was your profession like at that time? Or what did you do at that time? 4 �Bob Inglish: Well, I practiced in Okmulgee, which is a town of 14,000 people. At that time, the oil boom was in full force. I did a lot of oil and gas work. I always did a lot of probate work, real estate work. And, of course, in a small town, you do a lot of things, but that was primary emphasis. Kerry Lewis: And Dennis, in 1980, what were you doing? Dennis Neill: I was a third-year associate at a firm of about 30 attorneys, and I was spending a lot of my time working with the securities partners on oil and gas and real estate securities offerings. Kerry Lewis: Do you have any recollection of when you first met, the three of you, back in the, I'm assuming, the late 70s? Do you have any recollection of how that occurred? Mike Green: I met Dennis. There were three of us that had a bar in Central Plaza. It was part-time, it wasn't our day jobs. And we did it for fun at nighttime, and Dennis was living there, and Dennis would come in and sit there and have drinks and smoke cigars every time. That's how I met Dennis. I think I met Bob, I think Bob actually lived in Center Plaza for a while. Bob Inglish: Yeah, I did, I didn't make that connection. Mike Green: And that's when we first met. Kerry Lewis: And that was well before TOHR, OHR began? Mike Green: A few years, I would say, before that, about many years before. Bob Inglish: Well, of course, I was out of law school in 79 and TOHR started when? Dennis Neill: 80. Bob Inglish: 80, yeah, yeah. I think I met Dennis, like, at Zippers, and it wasn't, you know, the next week there was supposed to be a meeting at his house to come to. That's how I remember that, so. Kerry Lewis: Do you remember when the first time the discussion came up about we need to form or have some sort of an organization like OHR? For right now, it's limited to OHR. I understand there may have been some stuff going on before that, but do you remember how that first came up? Dennis Neill: Well, I remember talking with, I think, probably both of you at Zippers one night. I definitely recall, at least visiting with you, Bob, didn't I, at Zippers, and we were talking about the concept of having an organization. And I don't know if Mike and I kind of met separate on that issue or not, but very quickly we kind of got together with the four of us that became the first officers, including Gary Durst, and very quickly started meeting in some homes and laying out some thought processes, given the stimulus that we had from the Oklahoma City organization that had formed a few years before. Bob Inglish: There were probably about 10 or 15 people at that first meeting, I remember, at Dennis' house. And of course, one thing that seemed unique then that 5 �may seem peculiar now is that it's very important to have the support of the bar owners, because that was the center of gay life. And I remember John Willis was there, and Tim was there from Tim's playroom, and whatever, and there was... Mike Green: I think Jim Smith, too. Bob Inglish: Jim Smith. Kerry Lewis: How many, just to give us today a little bit of an idea, how many bars did you estimate were around back in 1980 that were kind of gay or gay-friendly bars in Tulsa? Bob Inglish: Well, there was Zippers, there was Tim's, and then there was the, wasn't there a trio of bars downtown? Mike Green: Right, the Taj Mahal and the Zebra. Bob Inglish: Zebra, which is awful. And the Queen of Hearts. Mike Green: Yes, and then what was the other, the disco down the street from the Queen of Hearts? In fact, it was the first disco in Tulsa, and it was so popular, the straights began coming to it. Took it over? Well, yeah, we put up a good fight. So it didn't ever really become a straight bar, but in fact, one of the owners was straight, and the other two were gay. Bob Inglish: But there wasn't anything about gay life, from a congregation standpoint, except the bars. Mike Green: Right. Bob Inglish: I mean, there wasn't a supportive church, there wasn't a non-profit group, there wasn't a group of common interests. It was just, if you were gay and you wanted to see people, you went to a bar. Kerry Lewis: Were you three, at that time, aware of nationally what was going on with the gay community? Were you aware that there were some organizations outside of Tulsa and Oklahoma that did something like this, or just, what was your level of knowledge as far as what else was going on as a whole as far as the gay community at that time? Mike Green: I'm not real certain of the time period, or the time frame, I should say, but I do remember that my practice had kind of taken a turn while I was doing an awful lot of gay work, representing people, gay people in divorces, both men and women, in criminal matters and other things like that. And I remember getting contacted by Lambda and some other organizations nationwide as to the work I was doing and wanting to assist and even pay some clients fees. They couldn't afford the fees themselves. Bob Inglish: Well, you certainly could take the Advocate to keep in contact with what was going on nationally. I think several of us were well-traveled and certainly at that point in time, the Castro area in San Francisco had developed and Greenwich Village had developed, so if you traveled any, you were certainly aware that there was a lot going on in the gay movement. Certainly, I had just come from OU and there was a lot of activity as far as gay student groups getting started at the 6 �university that was well publicized and so everything was in its early stages, but there was things going on that we were aware of here in Oklahoma. Mike Green: When was Stonewall? Bob Inglish: 1969. Mike Green: I'd ask that because I remember Gary Durst was there in New York when Stonewall occurred. I remember Gary telling me that he thought it was just another night out in New York City when it happened. He had no idea what was going on. Kerry Lewis: Well, at that time, did cities tend to have big pride-type activities like pride parades and festivals? Dennis Neill: Not locally at all. I think we saw some of the flamboyant stuff probably occurring in San Francisco and New York that you see on TV, but this was certainly pre-internet, pre-email, so you looked more for these static publications rather than the wealth of resources that you can have today with regard to knowing what other community centers are doing throughout the U.S. or what's going on with the gay and lesbian movement in other locales. It was a little more difficult, but there were a couple of reliable, viable sources of information. Kerry Lewis: How out were you in your personal lives at that time when you decided to be involved with organizing OHR, the Tulsa chapter of OHR? Were you fairly open with being gay to your family and friends at that time? Dennis Neill: Well, I was with my sister, but I wasn't particularly out with my parents, although I think they were aware. I do remember approaching a new junior partner at the law firm as we were first contemplating formation of TOHR and asking him if he thought I should go to the partners meeting and explain my activities with the gay community in Tulsa. He gave me the wise thought that really that was probably the focus of the partners meeting, that maybe if it was important for civil rights issues to go ahead and pursue it, but not really a need to visit with the law firm at this stage. So that was probably the right discussion because that was in 1980 and even that firm, that would have been the first gay individual that they would have had to deal with. It was probably better for them to get it more down the road after things got informed and in a little bit better shape than probably at that point in time. Bob Inglish: I think contextually you'd have to remember that when you talk about the gay movement coming into its own, that the Castro area in San Francisco or the Greenwich Village in New York City probably started developing as a gay center in 74 or 76. So we're talking about Tulsa in 1979 and 1980. We're certainly not the Castro area and we're certainly not Greenwich Village. The movement was fairly recent and the concept of people being openly gay and out and having activities as a gay community was still pretty new in other cities other than major metropolitan areas. I would think that we might have had an exuberance about starting the organization, but you weren't aware of roadblocks at the time until you tried things. You didn't necessarily know that doors were going to be shut until you tried things. Or tried a case, Mike, I would guess. You didn't necessarily know that there might be prejudice or confrontation as you tried things. 7 �Mike Green: I think I divorced in 66 and I had two children, like I said earlier. They were born I think in 58 and 60. And I never actually came out and told my family I was gay. I never came out and told my kids I was gay. They told me and they told my ex-wife who was very, very receptive and we're still very, very close to this date. But when TOHR was being formed, by that time my practice had become I'd say at least 50-60% gay. And as far as the community, the outside community was concerned, I grew up sitting in maybe four or five gay bars. And we had the liquor problems back in those days and there were a lot of liquor busts. And they got used to when they would bust a bar and take the owners in or the bartenders in, they would expect Mike Green to show up within a few minutes to get them out. And so my name was becoming associated with gay issues. And I realized too, some other attorneys learned I was gay and I never seemed to have a problem with it because of their knowledge. Kerry Lewis: And that kind of leads me on to my next question. I mean, what is your evaluation or your sense of the climate in Tulsa at that time as far as their attitudes towards gays and lesbians? Mike Green: I think it was negative. I really do. I don't think the people were educated, and I think they were fearful of the, quote, gay political agenda. And Tulsa had become a very, we used to call it the buckle of the Bible belt. And it was not at all, I don't think, gay friendly. But because they had not been exposed to that kind of lifestyle that we were going to try and present to them later on. And I know in some of the court situations I had, just the mere fact that you were a lesbian or you were a homosexual male would mean you were unqualified to have custody of your children. And I had problems in visitation issues even, where if you had a partner, that partner could not be in the home when the children came to visit. And it was just presumed that if you were gay or a lesbian and you had a partner, same sex partner, that you were doing something that was not presentable to the children. Kerry Lewis: And I'll ask the same question to you, too, in a second. But just as a follow up question to you, Mike, did you ever have a sense of risk as far as your personal safety or your personal status? Mike Green: Not my safety, no. Personal status, yes. I was concerned at times. I had a lot of clients who I'm not sure how receptive they would have been to knowing that I was gay. And also, I had two children I was supporting, and a son I was sending through college. Kerry Lewis: Bob, do you have any differing views on how Tulsa was as far as its perception of gay people? Bob Inglish: I don't think I would disagree, but you also have to remember where gay people were. I mean, I laugh at some of the things. You know, I remember, you know, you would dress a certain way. I mean, gay life was very clandestine, even for people who were out. And by out, I mean, they might go to gay bars or they might consider themselves homosexual and admit that personally and not have a problem with it. But, you know, if you were wanting to meet other homosexuals, you might dress a certain way. I mean, it went through trends. You might dress, have an IZOD t-shirt. How many IZOD shirts did you have? But that was... 8 �Dennis Neill: Are they out of style? Bob Inglish: They're back in, I think. But you would wear, you might wear an IZOD shirt and your jeans, and jeans, your hair might be cut short. And that was like a universal symbol. Or there was an absurd fashion statement where you flipped your collar up in the back for a while, which really looked dumb. But it was a, that was a signal to people that you were gay. And then you also had this feeling if you were like in an airport or you were at a store or something and, you know, you would see somebody and maybe detect that, some of those universal symbols that you go, wow, I mean, here's another gay person, like, oh, wow, you know. And of course, I think people were very sexually promiscuous then simply from a repression standpoint, they had been repressed for so long and there was such a exuberance about accepting the fact that you were gay that, you know, you might meet someone and you'd go, oh, you're gay, you know, maybe this is going to be a sexual encounter because, you know, you weren't going to meet gay people in another way. And so, you know, yeah, Tulsa had a feeling, you know, I think all of us perceive that to be negative, but gay people were not out and open and comfortable like they are today. I mean, you know, that was 24 years, 24 years ago, is that right? 23, yeah. So it was very different. Kerry Lewis: What about your sense of personal safety, your sense of status? You're just coming out of law school, or a few years out of law school. Did you have any, were you conscious of what the effect might be on your life and your career by being open or being part of a group like this? Bob Inglish: I don't really know that I was, but I think there was always some discretion that was involved. I mean, you just, you know, for example, now, if I interview a secretary or something at work, you know, I might say, I just want you to know I'm gay and, you know, I hope you don't have a problem with it, perhaps. You know, back then, I wouldn't have that discussion. You know, I mean, you wouldn't think about having that discussion. I was always out to my parents, but as far as, at least, you know, Okmulgee being very open, I don't think that I was. I never hid anything. I never dated, you know, a girl to give some kind of cover, but I never, but I don't know how particularly open I was. I had a pretty convenient out that I could drive back to Tulsa and be in a larger city and have that little bit of protection, but I don't think I ever had much fear for adverse consequences, and I think early on, I knew that it wasn't worth the sacrifice. I fortunately had counseling whenever I came out and had a pretty good, firm feeling that being openly gay was not an option, but an essential character. You know, something was very essential to one's well-being, and if something adverse had happened, I think I knew that I had other options, and perhaps there were areas of the country where you could go live, where you could be accepted. I mean, you could move to San Francisco. You could move to New York. You didn't have to stay here if you didn't want to. Kerry Lewis: So what were your perceptions of the climate in Tulsa with regard to gays and lesbians? Dennis Neill: Well, I felt we were definitely on the frontier here, and, you know, it was a time of contrast, too, because there were certainly some very supportive institutions. All Souls Unitarian Church, where we were first meeting, some of the 9 �members of their congregation really had a lot of outreach to us. The ACLU, in working with them, very interested in the gay rights movement in Oklahoma. So we certainly had some friends and some advocates, but I think they were pretty few, you know, and we really weren't pushing them too hard at that point in time to help us with some of the more advocacy type of activities that they've certainly become well-known for since 1980. But I certainly think I recognized we were dealing in a little bit different world then a lot of our heterosexual friends were, because I, for example, was taking materials to Zippers one Saturday night, and I got clobbered by some teenager kids that smashed in my eye, and that was in 1980. That was a time period that several people were getting beat up outside of Zippers and some of the other bars by kids with baseball bats. One of the co-hosts of our first Black and White, which also happened to be in 1980, disappeared and was presumed killed, whether it was gay-related or not. He was very out in the gay bar community, so very possibly a victim of a hate crime at that time. A couple of the drag queens were killed in the 1980 to 83 time period. So I think, and then there was that murder down at Taj Mahal. Mike Green: Double murder. Dennis Neill: So, double murder. So I think, you know, we were certainly aware that there were some risks being gay. Certainly risk being a closeted gay or an out gay in the community at that point in time. But I kind of go back that we also had some very important friends that helped us as we moved forward with regard to the advocacy issues and the legal issues for the gay and lesbian community. Kerry Lewis: And you may have already answered this question, but it kind of leads me to wonder whether you had a personal sense that you were making history of sorts at that time. Was there that sense of excitement that you were doing something new, something that hadn't been done before in Tulsa? Did you understand or comprehend or understand that at that time? Or is that something that just comes since then? Dennis Neill: Speaking for me, I definitely felt it because we would get people coming to our functions that were really so excited to have an organization like TOHR and we had so many of these activities outside of the bars, the skates, the softball, the volleyball. It became a very important outlet for people to get socialized within the gay and lesbian community. I remember doing a radio program and talking a little bit about gay issues and I was really speaking more of an ACLU attorney and getting many, many hostile calls during that talk radio program, but that really made you quite aware that you're pushing the envelope in the Tulsa community. The next morning I had a strange bag on my front lawn and I thought, man, maybe this is a bomb, but it was actually my neighbor leaving some trash out for the trash bin the next day, but just decided to put it in my yard instead of her yard. I think there was definitely a feeling and I think we definitely, I certainly felt that we were having an impact through this organization of reaching out to some of the newer members in our community as well as those that have been here for a long time. 10 �Kerry Lewis: Bob, what about you? Did you have that sense of that you were doing something that hadn't been done before, making history? Bob Inglish: Well, it was exciting and it was a needed service. I don't know that I really had much of a historical perspective. I mean, frankly, I think the three of us are just thrilled to death that TOHR is still here and that it has the many functions that it does. This is all pre-AIDS and there have been a lot of changes in the gay community, but if you think today what the gay community has compared to what we had then, we had nothing outside of the bars. Absolutely nothing. And today, and perhaps it is the result of some of this early work, you have at least two if not three gay churches. You have churches that are certainly accepting of gays. You have Prime Timers. I point to Mike. You have Project Open Arms that deal with gay youth. You have youth services that deal with gay youth. You have, gosh, help me out here, what are some of the other things that we just take for granted today that go on in Tulsa? Mike Green: Council Oaks. Bob Inglish: Council Oaks, Men's Chorale. Now there's a women's group of Council Oaks. There's probably support groups that we're not even aware of that, there was just nothing. There was just nothing. Everything we did, you know, softball team, I mean who would think that gay people would, I mean, you know, it would be stereotypical, but you know, we've had three or four meetings and somebody's talking about a softball league and you're going, why would we want to play softball? Dennis Neill: Who wants to do that? Bob Inglish: I didn't have any desire. There was a big combination of cheerleaders, I remember that. But we sponsored plays. We registered people to vote. We had health clinics because the venereal disease was rampant in the gay community. We did political surveys. We had a lot of programs and it just mushroomed and every year it mushroomed with more and more people involved. I mean, I didn't realize that, but Dennis, you were reading something in 83, which would have been three years later, there were 250 members of the organization and we maybe started out with 10, so. Kryy Lewis: What about you, Mike? Mike Green: I found it very exciting. I didn't realize what was going on as far as, like Dennis said, pushing the envelope, but I always remember the, when Virginia Opulso [Note – Virginia Apuzzo served as Executive Director of the National LGBTQTask Force in the early 1980’s], was that who it was, came to Tulsa in 1983, was that when she came here? And spoke and then we, at a dinner we held at the Trinity Church, we asked earlier, it was downtown, which of course is one of the bigger churches. And I remember the feeling that I had that evening that it was the very first time I had ever gone to a real presentable place for a gay function. The very first time ever. And I knew it was important. I remember I was so thrilled by it. And I remember that she, the thrust of her message was that if the gays would unite, we'd be one of the strongest, the strongest forces in the entire world. I remember going back to Tim's bar after that was over, being so enthused and walking in and all of the 11 �disagreements, the arguments and so forth, I dawned on me that it would never happen. But still, it was just the idea that I had gone to a gay function in a presentable place among presentable people. And that was unique, it really was. To be gay was unique back in those days. Today it's no longer unique. It's just accepted. Accepted the fact, oh, you're gay, like Bob said, in being a secretary. It's not an issue anymore. Of course, I live in Palm Springs now, so out there. It's certainly not an issue with me and my lifestyle. Kerry Lewis: You all have touched on it, but do you have anything else, I guess, to add than what you've already said about the reason for beginning OHR, to start organizing? What you said so far is normal. There was definitely a need for some social events to gather. There really was. The only alternative at the time was the network of bars. But was there any other compelling reason or something that you really felt personally why you wanted to see OHR go forward or having this kind of a group go forward? Mike Green: I think it was the thought, and I think Dennis presented this thought to us, was that we could make a difference somehow. And we didn't know when or how, but by actually organizing and doing something, we could make a difference in what was going on in our lives and those who would have come after us. Kerry Lewis: Are you referring to a political sense or just... Mike Green: Political sense, yes, social, in every aspect of gay life. Because gay life back in those days, as far as I'm concerned, was not acceptable. I remember being in the courtroom representing gay people and the attitude of some of the judges. Just the fact that they were gay made them guilty of something. Maybe not the crime they were charged with, but guilty of something. And that changed. I'm not saying we changed it, but I think that groups like TOHR, OHR, throughout the country and around the country did change it. And so we certainly had our place in it. I remember one judge, a good example would be one judge who was homophobic. And it even said in the courtroom that he would not believe anything a gay person said on the witness stand. Merely because they were gay. And that judge went to a judicial conference in San Francisco and came back a changed individual. And he even said things like, if I would have carried my thoughts to San Francisco, they would have run me out of town on a rail. And he came back just totally a different person. Bob Inglish: I think, you know, not only was TOHR a force, but those of us that were involved, we didn't want TOHR to be a social organization. But at the same time, in addition to maybe having a real feeling that we were doing something, you know, frankly from a personal standpoint, it was a wonderful way to meet people. And, you know, I think a lot of people became involved in the organization because you could meet people and visit with people and do things. And it wasn't that you had to go to a bar at midnight and have a drink and try to converse with people. It was, you know, you could really get to know people. And I know so many people in Tulsa, you probably feel the same way, and Dennis, you do too, that we met in the early days of the organization that we wouldn't have had the opportunity to do. And, you know, you too got involved with Black and White, you know, because, you know, 12 �there was a need to have social activity in the gay community, again outside the bar, so they started the Black and White Party. I, along with several other people, started the Harwelden Party in probably 1981 or so. I think it was probably 81. But, I mean, there was a desire to, like, you know, we're gay people, we can go out, we can have a nice party, a nice social function outside of the bars. And that still goes on today. It's still a nice function and a nice part of the gay community. It seemed like there was some other... Well, to me, one of the pioneering moments of TOHR was the AIDS crisis, because we, as a result of early on, 1983 or whatever, we sent Jeff Beal, and did you say you went too, Dennis? Dennis Neill: Yes Bob Inglish: To a conference about AIDS, and they brought back information about the disease that probably would not have gotten to Tulsa for another year or two. And so we were educating people about AIDS long before it would have happened otherwise, and you just would hope that you would save people's lives, that people's lives were saved as a result of getting that information. But also at that point in time, and I don't know if it was a function of our age or a function of the organization, but people weren't out, and as a result of talking to people and coming to these groups, they...became out. I don't know what the proper English is, but, you know, they became comfortable with being gay. And they weren't before that. And just by having all these activities, they were. And you don't hear... I mean, now people come out when they are 16. They go to a youth group after school. But I can assure you that wasn't the situation at that point in time. And some of our earliest meetings, in fact the first one you noted in the newsletter, was a psychiatrist who came and talked about being gay. I mean, did we have some horrible, awful disease? Were we somehow psychologically impaired? You know, what was wrong with us? That was what was going through a lot of people's minds. And we were able to bring information to people to indicate that wasn't the case. Kerry Lewis: You Dennis, do you have any other reasons other than what had been said for why OHR was formed? Dennis Neill: No, I think it's a good point. When we first started meeting and understanding what the Oklahoma City group orientation was, and we were a chapter initially of the Oklahomans for Human Rights that was started in Oklahoma City about two years before we really got started. It was probably a lot more advocacy at the front because the co-founder of that, Bill Rogers, was a very involved attorney, very involved in the ACLU, very involved in social cause issues. So he was probably much quicker to, in Oklahoma City, take it to be a political advocacy group to the extent it could while it was still a 501c3 non-profit organization. And we felt like here we needed a little more time to develop ourselves and understand for new people coming into the organization, kind of the socialization issue. So we probably did kind of focus on the social side quicker at the beginning, but very promptly got focused on the advocacy side too. In fact, it's reflected in our first 13 �bylaws, which really haven't changed since we organized in 1980, talking about really focusing on non-discrimination for all people. So that was certainly part of our charter at the beginning. It became a focal point fairly early in the organization. And I think that was evidenced by the fact that the news media, the political environment, very quickly became aware of us and we did become the spokespeople for the gay community. Whether we wanted to be representative of the gay community or not, you do need a focal point for the media and for the political establishment. I think we very quickly became the focal point. Kerry Lewis: What kind of response did you receive when you first decided to post your first few meetings and try to get people together? Was there a positive response? Was it easy to reach people that were in the community? What was your sense, Dennis, if you want to... Dennis Neill: Well, Bob has a better memory of this. I had forgotten that even in our initial meetings that we were able to get many of the bar owners together, although I think they probably had a little bit different agenda than maybe we did initially going in. So I might kind of pass it to Bob, because I honestly don't recall a lot of what those first meetings really looked like. Bob Inglish: You know, what I recall is that there was a group of gay people, and we're really speaking from a male perspective because the lesbian community, I think, has evolved a little bit differently. But there was an older group of gay people that I think were very non-supportive of TOHR because they were so used to being closeted. They had their little bridge nights, and they had this and that that interested them, and they had their very private parties. But as far as doing anything publicly, to come out publicly was a threat. They had definitely a system, a code among themselves that you could be gay, but you weren't supposed to tell anybody about it, and you certainly didn't go to an organizational meeting, and I think there was some hostility from that segment of the gay community. I think people that were our age were fairly supportive. Dennis Neill: That's a great point. I've forgotten, a mutual friend of all of ours was very adamantly against us when we first started OHR. He worked in the same building that I did, and he criticized us for about two or three years and eventually became a very big supporter of TOHR and participated in many of our activities, but gosh, Bob's right, the environment even within our own community was somewhat hostile. Bob Inglish: That was a kind of a function Mike served with some of the older members of the community. Mike Green: You guys are right. Now that I remember. Bob Inglish: I would go, Mike, would you talk to these people? Mike Green: And it was fear-based is what it was. We had people who held large positions with oil companies and banks. There were doctors, accountants, and these people were frightened they were going to be drug out of the closet, and Bob's right about the lifestyle they had. They even had their own little language. They had words 14 �that meant certain things that even today most of us don't know what they mean anymore. Bob Inglish: Watch the boys in the band. That will give you an idea. Mike Green: Mitch at the Tea Room had a whole different significance in those days. These people were scared. They really were, and the idea that they wouldn't have to come out. I think also it was a knowledge that they wanted to come out. They wanted this openness, and yet they were afraid what it might bring to them, a loss of earnings after a 55, 60-year-old man who's faced with losing his job. Even to this day, you can be fired because you're gay. There's no protection whatsoever under the law in Oklahoma. These people did not want to lose their source of income, and this was looming in the future that appeared to them. For some reason, many of them did come out, but there are still many older gays who don't want to be associated with these kind of things. As for myself and for the younger people, a gay lifestyle could be a very lonely lifestyle. By organizing, it got rid of some of the loneliness and some of the fear of the future of living a gay lifestyle. I think that was very important to many people, and that's why they opted. Because like Bob said, although we had a different agenda, it was very social. We were talking earlier that when we were organizing it, it got to the point where sometimes the food that was served, not at my house, but at other houses by some of the people that were organizing the group, the main issue was the food and tables that were set for us and things of that type. It's still social, but that's any organization you have nowadays. Any political organization becomes social or any selfimprovement organization becomes social, that's just the way life is. You meet people that have common interests with you, and it becomes very much easier to develop relationships. Kerry Lewis: What kind of things did you do? You mentioned several, but in addition to having meetings where speakers would come and I guess occasionally having dinners and meetings where you ate, apparently, what else? What other kind of activities toward the beginning did TOHR or OHR do? Mike Green: We had the bowling. We were talking earlier, we had the softball tournaments. Bob Inglish: Gay Skates. It was always a surefire fundraiser was to have a roller skating party. I still can't believe it. Dennis Neill: Because we also served alcohol, and we had an open bar at those things. It was a cash bar, and there was one of those skates that we had out in Sand Springs, and somebody, I think it was J.L., ran into the wall and injured himself and was in the hospital for three days. It was probably somewhat alcohol related, so we took some risk with regard to that. I think the skate's demise was when we decided we were going to cool it on alcohol. Mike Green: Then we had a group that met down at Riverside Drive to play volleyball on Sunday afternoons. 15 �Dennis Neill: Very quickly when we first formed, the drag queens were very supportive of the organization, had some fundraisers. Then we did our own Turnabout Drag Show, which became the Follies, where some of us that definitely shouldn't have been doing drag end up doing drag. Hugely successful fundraisers. They raised a couple of thousand dollars each event, which was very vital for our organization at that period of time. Bob Inglish: They did health clinics, registered people to vote, did questionnaires. Dennis Neill: Our picnics were kind of different than the picnics now in that we had a lot of games at those picnics. We had the softball games, chariot races, activity booths. When we started that, like 82 or 83 at the Chandler Park. So that it was very much about trying to get people involved in each activity. So we tried many things. And for the women, we certainly did outreach through the volleyball and the women's softball. Dennis Neill: And we started seeing what would you say, within the first year or so, women starting to get involved with the TOHR. Because by 83, I think two of the six or seven officers were female. And we started seeing a balance develop by the mid 80s where the females were getting involved with, at least at the organizational level, they probably weren't as involved in the meetings and as representative in the community at the meetings, but started getting involved in the leadership positions. Kerry Lewis: Did you have any other activities that you guys can recall at that time? Maybe I should ask this. When did the helpline begin? Was that toward the beginning of the 80s or about the same time? Dennis Neill: I remember we had the training at John Dratz's apartment where he lived there about 15th off of Peoria. And then that Steve, I think that was his name, at his house we had some early training. Typically you'd have to spend all day as a volunteer going through the training. And then we even had some professional trainers and got some training from the Community Service Council's helpline to help us. But gee, it had to be early on, didn't it? Because we had it well before our first office, and our first office came about in 83 or 84, and that was when we used to have it down in Zippers before we even had an office. Bob Inglish: When we had a recorded message, we were listed in the phone book, so it wasn't necessarily staffed, but people could call. Mike Green: We would staff that, I think, in the evening hours, is what we'd usually do, and then record a message in the daytime. I remember one time walking into the clerk's office in one of the courts, and they were all laughing about something. And I realized what they were laughing about was that somebody had told them of the gay helpline, and they were calling it just to get that message. They weren't saying anything, they weren't really harassing phone calls, they were just calls just to see what the message was. And these people could not believe there was actually a gay helpline in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They were so amazed by it. Dennis Neill: Dean Dugan and Steve Wilson, who both worked with Southwestern Bell, helped us get the phone number, because we won that Vanity phone number, 743-GAYS. And I remember that when they put it in, that the central office of 16 �Southwestern Bell, the supervisors, all got together in an office to dial that number and get that recording, because they'd heard about it. And Dean or Steve just happened to be walking by and noticed them all in there wondering what in the world they were doing on a speakerphone. They were listening to our phone number. And within the first few months of putting it in, some students at that Rhema Bible College took a pledge to try to tie up our line. And we understand that was even discussed in the classes, to encourage students to dial our number, because they thought it was not appropriate to have the gay helpline here. And so we had a tremendous volume for about the first six months, and many of them were just hanging up, trying to tie up our line. But the group of dedicated volunteers, we got through that first six months or so, and then got down to the point where we were getting very important calls from people needing health information, needing to know what was going on in the community. The tough ones were the younger people calling, because we at that time felt uncomfortable talking to anybody under 18. And fortunately, we found a couple of resources. I think one of the churches volunteered to be a resource for those that were under 18, and we would provide a phone number for them. But we started getting lots of very important calls. I think the line made a big difference in people's lives. Now, obviously, still 67 percent of the calls might be somebody out of town wanting to know what bar to go to, what activities might be in the community. But a lot of them, particularly, as Bob mentioned, kind of this pre- and emerging AIDS time frame, we could really start seeing the swing over to the health issues by 83, 84. Bob Inglish: Didn't we donate books to the public library? I mean, there wasn't hardly any gay books at the library, or knowledge. Didn't we donate books? Dennis Neill: I think we did. Kerry Lewis: Logistically, how did you guys handle the helpline? Was that kept at somebody's home? Mike Green: No. John Willis, who owns Zippers, volunteered Zippers for the helpline. He had a private office in there. Wasn't there a small office behind his office where we originally set it up? And then later, when we got our first offices, we moved it over there, of course. Kerry Lewis: The impact of HIV and AIDS on the community and your impressions of that. I'm not sure at the time it was happening that it was as clear as it might be now. Looking back on it, what did the sudden emergence of a gay disease, as it was called, have on the community in Tulsa? I Mike Green: think it came around. It evolved so slowly. I can remember sitting up at Rick's and a friend of mine who's no longer living, who's a doctor, reading from Time magazine. I think I handed it to him, a little excerpt about the gay cancer thing. And him just kind of marveling, what is this thing, gay cancer? This really can't be. You know, if it's disease, we're just gay people. It just slowly got bigger and bigger. And it wasn't a long time before it hit Tulsa. Bob Inglish: You could read about it and watch TV about it, but it was all going on in San Francisco and New York. You thought, well, this isn't going to happen in Tulsa. And then it just eventually started happening. One of the first things I remember was, 17 �do you remember, it was at Sophian Plaza. It was at Don Donaldson's apartment. There was this guy that had AIDS. And of course, at that point in time, he knew he had AIDS because he had Karposi. And he had an identical brother. And they were going to go to Baltimore or someplace to have this bone marrow thing. I mean, it was real early on. Dennis Neill: Gosh, I do remember that. Bob Inglish: And we charged like 50 cents. You had to make a donation of 50 cents or something like that to help this guy out, pay for this medical treatment. I mean, Lord only knows the watershed of dollars after that, whether 50 cents a person mattered. But I remember that distinctly. Mike Green: Yeah, now that you talk about that, I do remember something about that. Dennis Neill: Yeah, I had forgotten about that. And then the first one I remember was that by mid-1983, as we started having these TOHR meetings focused on HIV, we started getting aware of it. I think it was in like early 1984, an individual came to one of our meetings and was actually in a wheelchair and was HIV infected and was ill from that. That's the first individual I remember that came to an OHR meeting and was also clearly ill from AIDS. And one of the first deaths I remember was Randy Anderson's death. Bob Inglish: Well, that's who I was talking about. Dennis Neill: Oh, was it Randy? Okay. Bob Inglish: But we were talking about, A, the gay community being very sexualoriented, that you would meet a gay person at an airport and you would just be excited that you met a gay person and that there would be maybe a compulsion to have sex. Dennis Neill: Bob's speaking for himself here. Bob Inglish: Not me, I'm not talking about myself. But then the AIDS crisis comes along and, of course, everybody's sexual activity became very cautious and then so many of us have become coupled. And, of course, you were then saying that that wasn't true for the very older generation, but those people were never out. It's kind of a different generation. Mike Green: That well may be. Bob Inglish: But I can see now where before it was like, well, we're not going to get pregnant, so why not have sex? And you would have a gathering. I mean, Sunday brunch was always a big time. And it would be like, Dennis went home with so-andso and did this, and so-and-so went home with so-and-so. But no, I went home with so-and-so the night before. I mean, that was gay life, really. Mike Green: Well, I think it unfortunately or maybe I don't know what it is, that's still gay life. In many respects. After all, we do have a thing called safe sex nowadays and many people practice it. It's amazing where I live right now, there are a number of people who do not practice that. It's just kind of unbelievable but they don't. And 18 �they're very proud of not practicing safe sex. But now they do have safe sex and when AIDS first came out we didn't know what caused it. We thought if you could be around somebody you'd catch it. I remember a friend of mine went to California and came back and told me he'd been in a party where a guy was dying of AIDS. I said, how could you be near him? How would you be around him? So it was such a very scary thing. The disease was unknown as to how it was transmitted. So it's evolved and it better be bad that we know more about it and we know it's more difficult to catch than most things and that you've got to be promiscuous in certain ways to come down with it. So I still think that there's a lot of sex going on. In fact, that's one of the problems today with HIV spread, is that there's too much sex going on, too much promiscuity in the gay world. Bob Inglish: There certainly wasn't a lot of couples to maybe feel like you were modeling after that wasn't a very normal part of the gay community. And then we're talking now that at least gay people in other areas are adopting children and whatever it is. Mike Green: That is coming around. As far as older people, I have a lot of friends who have celebrated 50 years or more with the same partner. I'm not saying they've been in a monogamous relationship, but they've been together at least 50 years. Bob Inglish: I bet the percentages, though, are very different. You're talking about a pretty narrow percent of the population that you're talking about. Dennis and my generation, you're talking about a lot more people have established relationships and homes and things like that. Or do you not think so? Mike Green: Well, the only thing that will tell is time. Because I think maybe you have more monogamous relationships now than we had before. Dennis Neill: Well, it could be part of the deal, might be, don't you think? Not that there's these huge generational gaps here, but probably in your generation, Mike, there may be more people that were willing to live the lie, i.e., always stay married to a female, and therefore there weren't as many opportunities for some of those people to couple up with a guy where probably in our generation, certainly the younger generations, there's less acceptance of living the lie. And so much earlier on in their development, they may be looking at, one, exploring the sexual side of the gay life, but then, two, realizing that it is important hopefully at some point in time to find an individual that you can kind of revolve your life around. And then our societies get more mature in supporting those relationships. Mike Green: I think that's a good idea. It's much easier to maintain a gay marriage. Dennis Neill: I mean, this whole argument about gay marriage is so ridiculous because if the heterosexual world really wanted to help control the promiscuity issue, it'd be very supportive of the gay relationships, the gay unions, and so forth, much like the Netherlands has experienced and some of the other countries that have a much formalized union process to celebrate the union and to support it in various ways. Mike Green: And two, a lot of people I meet, I'm sure you guys have met too, they look at this idea of being married and getting into a heterosexual relationship and having children and so forth. It really belongs to the Midwest. It's not an East Coast 19 �thing, it's not a West Coast thing, but it belongs to Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas. It may well be. I don't know. I have a lot of friends in California now from Michigan, New York, San Francisco, and most of the guys have not been married and do not have children. Whereas back here, I still have a lot of friends who are my age who have raised families with grandmothers now. Some of the great grandmothers. Organizationally, you had mentioned that TOHR started in 1983 to deal with HIV by having programming that kind of revolved around educating or finding out what's going on with HIV. I know eventually there became testing, but what other kinds of things were going on in the early to mid-1980s involving HIV? [Tape Ended] 20 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2003] Bob Inglish, Mike Green, and Dennis Neill Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 4, 2003 Description An account of the resource Bob Inglish, Mike Green and Dennis Neill Oral History Interview with Kerry Lewis on May 5, 2003 - Discover the early days of Tulsa's LGBTQ+ activism through the personal stories of key founders. This episode explores how the community built a social, legal, and health infrastructure amidst societal resistance and growing awareness of HIV/AIDS. Subject The topic of the resource Bob Inglish, Mike Green, and Dennis Neill Oral History Interview from May 5, 2003 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bob Inglish, Mike Green, Dennis Neill, Kerry Lewis 2003 activism AIDS AIDS/HIV Bob Inglish Dennis Neill Dennis R. Neill HIV HIV/AIDs interview Kerry Lewis Kerry R. Lewis Mike Green OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript TOHR transcript Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) video Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2019] Al Carlozzi Interview Subject The topic of the resource Al Carlozzi Diverse Sexuality and Gender in Oklahoma Oral History Project Interview from June 6, 2019 Description An account of the resource Al was interviewed on June 6, 2019, by Oklahoma State University as part of its Diverse Sexuality and Gender in Oklahoma Oral History Project. In the interview, Al discusses his early life, service in the Air Force and early outreach to the LGBTQ+ community for mental health. In 2006, he became director of the OSU-Tulsa Counseling Center (now named the Al Carlozzi Center for Counseling) until his retirement in 2019. He has been a long-time consultant with Oklahomans for Equality regarding its counseling services. He collaborated on the book “Transgender and Gender Diverse Persons: A Handbook for Service Providers, Educators, and Families.” <strong>A copy of the OSU transcript is on file at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Al Carlozzi, Angus Henderson, Allison Richmond, Matthew D. Williams, Micki White, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 6, 2019 2019 Al Carlozzi Allison Richmond Angus Henderson Diverse Sexuality and Gender in Oklahoma Oral History Project interview Matthew D. Williams Micki White Oklahoma Oral History Research Program Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (OSU) Oklahoma State University Archives oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript OSU OSU Archives OSU Diverse Sexuality and Gender in Oklahoma Oral History Project OSU Oral History Project transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2026] Alyssa Bryant Interview Subject The topic of the resource Alyssa Bryant Oral History Project Interview from May 29, 2026 Description An account of the resource Alyssa Bryant shares her life journey, from growing up in Oklahoma to her transition and advocacy for transgender rights. This interview covers her personal experiences, her legal practice, challenges, and contributions to the LGBTQ+ community. Interview conducted by Toby Jenkins. Transcript edited by Mary Bishop-Baldwin June 5, 2026. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alyssa Bryant, Toby Jenkins, Mary Bishop-Baldwin Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 29, 2026; June 5, 2026 2026 Alyssa Bryant available at Center discrimination Families family Gay Rights gender dysphoria healthcare interview legal advocacy legal resources Mary Bishop-Baldwin OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Toby Jenkins transcript Transgender Transgender Rights video https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/3f257b237fcb28eacc3a53644888ae6c.mp4 b7854c07569e72010538c04ee38ad435 https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/dc8193d4ab8cf0eb7f5c31a11315bcfe.pdf a2e2ac0ad4e26f5a886e10f91d43280c PDF Text Text Oral History Interview with Anna Dodwell Interview Conducted by Laura Belmonte August 1, 2004 OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma Oral History Research Program Edmon Low Library ● Oklahoma State University ©2004 �OKEQ Oral History Project Interview History Interviewer: Laura Belmonte Transcriber: Allison Richmond Editors: Anika Benthem The recording and transcript of this interview were processed at the Oklahoma State University Library in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Project Detail The OKEQ Oral History Project is a series of interviews documenting the rich contributions of LGBTQ community members in the state of Oklahoma, with a particular emphasis on Tulsa and the surrounding area. These interviews were conducted by members of Oklahomans for Equality, formerly Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights. Legal Status Scholarly use of the recordings and transcripts of the interview with Anna Dodwell is unrestricted. The interview agreement was signed on August 1, 2004. 2 �OKEQ Oral History Project Anna Dodwell Oral History Interview Interviewed by Laura Belmonte August 1, 2004 Tulsa, Oklahoma Belmonte It is Sunday, August 1, 2004, and I’m Laura Belmonte. We are interviewing Anna Dodwell today at my home. Anna, we begin with some really basic stuff. Just tell us your full name and where and when you were born. Dodwell Okay. Anna Dodwell, I was born here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, September 7, 1963. Belmonte Have you lived here your whole life? Dodwell Yes. Belmonte Okay. Tell us a little bit about your childhood and your family background. Dodwell Well, I went to Eisenhower Elementary School and grew up with lots of kids in my neighborhood. We played, and they teased me, and I teased them, and it was just kind of a fairly normal childhood. My father was a plumber, and my mother was the manager of a restaurant for many, many years. I went to Edison Junior High and High School. Went to school with one star, Jeanne Tripplehorn; she’s been in a few movies. Went to—I’ve known her since elementary school. Just had a lot of childhood—close childhood friends. Nothing really significant. I was in Camp Fire for twenty-six years, so it was very special to me. Belmonte Any brothers and sisters? Dodwell I have an older brother and I have—actually three older brothers who are all half-brothers, and then I have a sister, and that’s it. Belmonte That sounds like enough. Dodwell Yeah. Belmonte How have you classified your sexual identity for most of your adult life? 3 �Dodwell To begin with, when I was in high school or even junior high, I knew there was something different, and I didn’t know what it was. I knew that whatever it was, it was strange. I shouldn’t have to like girls. Why should I—why am I liking this? I tried to go with society and decided that I knew that I was a lesbian, but there really wasn’t a name for it. There was no support, zero support, for any teenager, or any adults for that matter, as far as coming out or anything like that. We just kind of tried to do what society says to do. I had a son, and I tried to say, “Well, this is it. This is where I’m supposed to be,” but I was miserable. Belmonte How long have you been out to yourself? Dodwell To myself, I’ve been out probably since I was nineteen or twenty. Belmonte When did you have your first same-sex sexual experience? Dodwell When I was about nineteen, I think, nineteen or twenty, yeah. Belmonte How did you find this woman? Did you meet through a mutual friend? Dodwell In a bar. Belmonte Do you remember what bar? Dodwell Seeker’s Choice. Belmonte Where was that? Do you remember anything about it? Dodwell I don’t remember… Belmonte Terry remembers. (Laughter) Dodwell It was on Admiral, yes. I don’t remember exactly where, but yeah, I picked someone up—well, I guess she picked me up. It was in a little, tiny strip mall. Belmonte Was it predominantly a women’s bar? Dodwell I think so, yeah. That’s all I ever saw in there, really, was women. It was—I do know it was owned by a transgendered man. Belmonte Oh really? Is he still alive? Still live in Tulsa? Dodwell I don’t know. 4 �Belmonte Did you go to this bar again? Dodwell I went occasionally, but the woman was really scary, and I didn’t want to see her anymore. (Laughter) Belmonte We’ve never heard that story. (Laughter) Dodwell She had whips hanging from her wall, and I really didn’t like that. Terry Scared you to death. (Laughs) Belmonte I could see why. Living in Tulsa your whole life, when do you recall having met a gay person for the first time? Dodwell I knew that my nephew was coming out, and he would talk about how gay he was when Rocky Horror was really big. We’d go to Rocky Horror all the time. He was kind of the first gay person that I really was around. He used to correct his lisping in front of the mirror and all that kind of stuff. Other than that, he just—he was about the only person that I can think of; everybody else I knew was straight. Belmonte You heard of Seeker’s Choice how? Do you recall when you first began to hear about places where gay people went in Tulsa? What were some of those places other than Seeker’s Choice? Dodwell I believe I called the helpline. I think I called the helpline to find that out. I either did that or I looked in the phonebook, but I think it was the helpline. I can’t recall exactly how that came about, but I know they gave me two or three different choices of bars that I could go to. Gosh, that was ’83. Belmonte That would have narrowly ended the helplines if— Dodwell Yeah. (Laughs) That’s kind of when I got involved with the community. Belmonte Well, what were some of the other places that you met gay men and women after going to Seeker’s Choice? Dodwell The only places that I knew were bars, really. Zipper’s, I grew up in Zipper’s. Belmonte Tell me what Zipper’s was like for women. I’ve heard a lot of men talk about Zipper’s. Dodwell It was okay. I mean, there were several women there. They did have a few drag king shows there. It was kind of far and few between, but it did happen. There were so many young people and so many underage people there, but 5 �for women, there was like a—if I remember right, it was an area that was— you’d walk into the bar, you’d go up these steps and to the left; it was like almost all women. Anywhere else in the bar they were just scattered here and there; they weren’t grouped in certain areas, but one area I always knew that they were. Belmonte Where else besides Zipper’s? Dodwell TNT’s. Belmonte Do you remember what TNT’s was like at the time? Dodwell I think it was a little rougher than—well, of course—than it is now. Belmonte It’s straight now. Dodwell I know. I think they’re trying to keep it gay, but it’s not happening. Oh, Tracy’s. Yes, I went to Tracy’s too. I don’t remember where that one was— off of Utica. I didn’t go to Tracy’s very often. Have you ever been to Tracy’s? Belmonte This is the first time I’m hearing about Tracy’s. Tracy’s and Seeker’s Choice. Dodwell Tracy’s was a nicer bar—well, much nicer than Seeker’s Choice, I think it was. Belmonte You said Seeker’s Choice was off Admiral. Dodwell Yes. Went there, not a whole lot, but went there now and then. Then I started going to Zipper’s a lot, went to Zipper’s all the time whenever it was in its glory. Belmonte Over at 31st and Yale. Dodwell Yes. Oh yeah. I remember all the car bashings and the people that would be standing outside when the bar would close, and they would have baseball bats in their hands and, you know. Belmonte Tell me more about that. I’ve heard that policemen would take down names of license plates, but I hadn’t heard what you’re enumerating here. Dodwell Yeah, because there’s a lot of apartments that are around there, and there’s probably four or five different apartments. If you would leave the bar— mostly for the guys, you know, they would leave. They would just stand there; it was like an intimidation thing. Either they had already bashed their 6 �car, or they were just wanted to stand there just to make sure that they were afraid, I guess. It was frightening. They would yell at you from the balconies and tell you—call you names and things like that. There, for a while, Zipper’s started losing some business because people were afraid to go. Belmonte Do you recall any instances where people and not just property were harmed? Dodwell I know that there were some fist fights and things like this, like some of the queens would come out and be drunk, and they would say something, and they would just start just fist fighting. That’s the only thing I saw myself. I know the police were called a lot. Of course, police came inside the bar all the time. They would just look at you, and they would harass you, they’d ask for your license. It was a really big deal. They did harass a lot. Belmonte Now, in your circle of friends, what did you and your lesbian and gay friends do outside of bars? Dodwell Went to each other’s houses, had parties. We didn’t really do a whole lot as, actually, as a group. We’d go out to eat sometimes, and sometimes we’d go to a movie or something, but no real planned activities. Of course, I was young. My gosh, I was a baby, so it was party all the time. That’s all I wanted to do. Belmonte You made a comparison of Tracy’s and Seeker’s Choice and said that Tracy’s was nicer. Tell me more about this bar—this is the first time I’ve heard about Tracy’s. Dodwell The clientele I think was a little nicer as far as—it wasn’t as rough of a crowd; at least I don’t think it was. Belmonte Mainly women? Dodwell Yes. Well, actually, there were half and half at Tracy’s. At Seeker’s Choice, it was a lot of women. A lot of—well, I remember older women without teeth, but (Laughter) I don’t know if that’s something to write about. (Laughter) Belmonte Oh yeah. Terry They had split clientele. [Inaudible] Older women, it’s like there’s this real age gap. [Inaudible] Belmonte It’s my impression, and you can correct me if you think this is wrong, that a pretty hardcore butch femme culture in the bars in Tulsa persisted pretty long past when it did in other places. In many cities, Buffalo, New York, for 7 �instance, this began to disappear by the late ’60s. It sounds to me like that culture was still in place in Tulsa pretty late into the ’80s. Dodwell Definitely. I know some people who are still stuck in that, so it’s— Oklahoma is really backwards with that. They’re catching up to the things in different cities with things like that. Belmonte Did you witness a lot of violence in these bars? Fights? Dodwell A few, yeah. A lot of jealous butch girlfriends, that somebody would look at their girl, and they’d go after them and try to be the man of the house and do whatever they needed to do to take care of that. I saw a few fights, mostly alcohol-induced. Belmonte How did this physically manifest itself? Were there very rigid codes of what you would wear or not wear or how you would act, or was it more of a kind of attitude sort of thing? Dodwell Yes, there was. I was told when I was first starting to go out—it jarred my memory; this is great—that if you had any amount of sized breasts, you know, like mine, if you had them, you were not a lesbian. (Laughs) I was told that many times. Belmonte By whom? Dodwell By butch women, the older butch women, mostly, saying that’s just not right. “You just can’t just have big boobs and be okay and be with us. You’re not one of us.” I’ve heard that many times. Things like if—I remember I used to have this smock thing or whatever, and it had some pink in it. I don’t classify myself as butch or femme; I can do either one, and I’ve always been like that. That was not—that was an issue with some people. “Pick one, what are you going to be? Butch or femme?” I can’t be butch because I have boobs. Okay, maybe I can be femme, but I have to wear a dress, and I don’t like dresses. I would wear this smock thing, and they would tell me that if you’re trying to be butch, it’s not going to work because you have a pink flower on this. It’s not going to work. Belmonte How did you find a middle ground here? It must have been personally quite challenging, really not feeling like you fit into either category here. Dodwell I always thought labels were silly and stupid, so I don’t know. I’ve always just been myself and said, “Okay, this is what you get, and if you don’t like it, then you can go away.” A lot of people went away, especially back then. If you didn’t do a lot of partying and a lot of drugs, and if you didn’t fit into this particular group of gay culture, or if you weren’t the butch or the femme, where did you go? A lot of times I didn’t go. I also went to Crash 8 �Landing, which I loved Crash Landing. It was on 5th and Lewis, and it had a real airplane inside. Belmonte It’s amazing you guys didn’t meet each other sooner. (Laughter) Terry We have friends in all of the same circles, and we knew a lot of the same people, which is really ironic that we had never met. Belmonte Small world. Dodwell The Crash Landing was a combination bar. Have you heard of that one? Belmonte No. Dodwell Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, they had every—I don’t know if it was every month or every other week, but it was like a women’s dance they would have. The person you get lots of history from for that, all the bar stuff, is Ms. Carol Brown. I think maybe Renee, hopefully you know Renee. She would be a wealth of information for you. Belmonte Great. At the end of the taping, I would love it if you guys give me some names of people you think might be potential interviewees. That would be great. Dodwell You got it. Crash Landing did have a lot of—it was a neat bar; it was a really big place. It was high energy dance stuff, whatever it was back then. Terry It was three stories. Belmonte Quite substantial. Dodwell Isn’t it a church now? I know they tore it down, maybe it was a parking lot of a church. Terry There was a bar on every level, and it was just a really cool place. They had the most irritating final song I have heard in my whole life. Do you remember it? It can get people out of the bars. They put [inaudible] constantly. It said, “Bye bye, see you later. Bye bye, see you later. Bye bye, see later.” It would drive you out of the bar. Belmonte I suppose that was its intent. (Laughter) Terry Yeah, probably. Belmonte Was Crash Landing a mixed bar too? 9 �Dodwell I think so. Yeah, mostly. Except when they had the women’s dances. Belmonte What were these women’s dances like? Dodwell Popular. Belmonte Can you estimate how many people would go? Dodwell I don’t know. I would say fifty maybe. It was a lot for back then, and it was—there were just quite a few. Belmonte When would this have been? Dodwell This would have been ’82 to ’86, probably. Two, three year period there, but it was a very popular bar. Belmonte What were the atmosphere of these dances like? Dodwell Pretty—I think they were pretty light, and real fun. People didn’t seem like they had the barriers like a lot of people in our community have today. It’s like they were maybe more trusting, or maybe more accepting, or something like that that was—it was okay to go into this place by yourself, and people would talk to you, you know, things like that. Now it’s a little different. There’s— Belmonte A different spin on it. Now, in conjunction with this butch femme roles, do you recall that there were sexual expectations that went with that too? Like if you were butch, there were certain things that you did and didn’t do and vice versa? Dodwell I think so. Yeah. The butch was the more aggressor sexually, even romantically. The femme was more the little wifey kind of thing, just kind of went along with everything that the butch wanted to do. That’s what I saw. I don’t know if it’s the same now or not. Belmonte Let’s say you wanted to go on a nice date that wasn’t at a bar. Were there any restaurants or places in town that were known as gay-friendly? Dodwell Absolutely not, no. Just your own home. Belmonte In your circle of friends, let’s talk about some of their experiences you might remember. Do you remember—well, let’s start with your own family. When did you come out to your own family, and how did they respond? Dodwell My father died before I could come out, but my mother—I came out after I had my son to her, and I had my son at nineteen. I came out to her after that, 10 �and it was really difficult for her at first, especially. She was very angry. Then it got better. She hated my first girlfriend with a passion. She just started getting better with everything. She just started understanding a little more, and then my nephew came out to her. My nephew was a drag queen, and he was very flamboyant. I think he lives in Dallas now, but she would help him get ready for drag shows, and she started wanting to do things. If PFLAG [Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays] would have been available or there back then, my mother would have been right in the trenches with that. I know she would have. She slowly learned that we’re people, too, and it’s okay that I love somebody of the same sex, but it’s not about sex. My mom would—even before my mother died at a nursing home, and we were talking to the whole staff about things, my mom would say, “If you have a problem with lesbians, you need to tell me now because my daughter is one.” She’d out me all the time, but I took her to see Boy George; I took her to see The Village People. She went to one gay pride picnic. I think—so she was okay with it later on. Belmonte Sounds like she was more than okay with it. Do you recall other parents being at that picnic or was she the only one? Dodwell She was pretty—I think she was pretty much the only one. That’s when it was at Mohawk Park. Oh my gosh, she just loved it. She used to love the gay boys, oh my gosh. She came a long way from when I first told her. She always was afraid for me being beat up and things like this; she didn’t want that to ever happen. The rest of my family—my brother, my oldest brother, doesn’t—he has an issue with gay people, mainly because of my nephew. My nephew is just, “I’m in your face. I’m gay. Deal with it.” He’d been out for years, and it just kind of turned him off, so I can’t really blame him for that, I guess. The rest of my siblings—they know that my sister has a problem with it kind of, so it’s—I don’t have anybody really with open arms in my family. Of course, on my dad’s side, they’re all from Arkansas, so I mean, they don’t even want to talk to me. You know, that’s their loss. Belmonte What about your son? Dodwell My son is okay with it now. Belmonte Well, I mean, you must have had to come out to him pretty early in his life, I would guess. Dodwell Yeah, I did. Actually, it was more like fourteen when we talked about it. He was okay with that, too. He just wants me to be—he said, “I just want you to be loved, and I want you to be cared for and not be hurt.” That’s kind of what he looks at. He doesn’t really talk about it a whole lot; he’s a very funny kid. He’ll—he used to—oh my gosh, he used to borrow my car or my ex’s car, and he’d get in it, and he’d come back, and all the stickers would 11 �be taken off of the car. (Laughter) He’s like, “I don’t want to ride in your car; people are going to think I’m gay.” (Laughs) It’s like, “Fine, then meet me there.” He’s twenty-one now, so he’s a grown man. He’s doing his thing. I recently went through a divorce, a break-up, and he dealt with that okay, and you know, he’s still working on that, but he’s just—I think he accepts me. He just wants to make sure I’m safe. I’m okay. I’m happy. Belmonte You mentioned that you work for Sears. How long have you been with Sears? Dodwell I have been with Sears since January. They have the GALS program there; it’s the Gays and Lesbians of Sears. They also have the domestic partnership benefits. They’ve got diversity days. [Inaudible] (Laughs) Belmonte She’s not in the frame here. You have to wonder who she is. Dodwell Yeah, we have diversity days, and that’s toward the end of this month, where I guess we come up with activities or things to celebrate [inaudible]. Belmonte Now, have you encountered discrimination on any of your other jobs? Have you ever encountered harassment yourself in coming out of a bar? Tell me about some of that. Dodwell Coming out of a bar, no, I haven’t really. I’ve just witnessed other people having problems. I did at Woodland Hills Mall one time, when—let’s see, it was probably ’84—when I was with this other girl that—we were walking in the mall, and all of the sudden, all of these kids from, I guess, Broken Arrow or Bixby High School, whatever, they followed us out and started shoving us around and everything, calling us, you know, “you dyke,” and “you this,” and “you that.” That’s about the only negative thing, really. I mean, I’ve had people scream at me and say things, but not real bad. Of course, it’s gotten a lot better over the years, but I can’t think of anything else other than what happened at Woodland Hills; that was kind of scary. Belmonte Let’s talk about your jobs. Dodwell My jobs. I worked at the Tulsa Police Department; that was a real fun thing. I was an animal control officer in a man’s world, so I had to prove myself. I got lots of comments about being gay. “Where’s the lesbian in the house?” There would be a lot of comments. Through the police department, you had no protection, not back then you didn’t. Maybe they do now, I don’t know. I kind of doubt it. There were just—mostly the comments, they would—there was one time in my mailbox, they had shoved a tie in there, a man’s tie, and boxers, and things like that. That’s when I first started working there. Belmonte When was that? 12 �Dodwell From—let’s see, I quit in ’89, so I worked there four or five years. It was during that time, ’83. That was probably the worst of it. A lot of times I would get harassed by my boss, actually, at a part-time job that I had at a supermarket. He found out that I was a lesbian, and he was just all for finding somebody else to help him out. “Come on, let’s go and have a big ole three-way party.” Oh my god, I hate that place. Oh, god. That was awful. No, no, no. I don’t [inaudible] you. Okay? It just doesn’t happen. Belmonte Being a lesbian is not a package deal, sorry. Dodwell No, it’s not. (Laughter) Belmonte In your circle of friends, I’ve been told, for instance, that there was a man in the community who was pretty well-known in the bars who was murdered in Mohawk Park, and the crime went unsolved. Do you recall hearing anything about that case or anything else along that nature? Dodwell I had heard about it, and I—but I don’t know any of the details. I just knew that it happened, but I really don’t know anything. Belmonte Tell me about what some of your gay male friends had to say about their lives in this period. Where, for instance, did they go if they were looking for a sexual encounter? What were some of the bars that were— Dodwell Tim’s Playroom was big. A lot of their experiences as far as—just in the general Tulsa area, I guess—violence, a lot of violence, what I’ve heard. A lot of loneliness because really the only place to go to meet other people were at the bars at the time. If you didn’t drink, or you didn’t like to go to the bars, then you were out of luck for the most part. I know that they went to Turkey Mountain quite a bit. I don’t know if they went back in the ’80s, but I can’t recall [inaudible]. That was just for just like sex, nothing more than that. There might have been a few little groups that popped up here and there. There was a men’s supper club that went on forever. Belmonte Do you remember any of the men who were a part of that group? Dodwell Dennis Neill, I believe, knew about it or was a part of it. Belmonte I’ll have to ask him about that. Dodwell Yeah, see if he knows something. Belmonte What about “the fruit loop” in downtown? Did they ever talk about that? 13 �Dodwell I’ve heard of the fruit loop. I don’t know that very well. I don’t know of that. That might have been maybe before my time. I don’t know. Belmonte It sounds like that went pretty far back. Dodwell Yeah, it did, but I have heard about it. Belmonte You mentioned the gay picnic. Did you go to any of the meetings of TOHR when it was first founded? Dodwell Oh yeah. Belmonte Tell me about what made you do that, and what those meetings were like, and whether you found that a positive experience? Dodwell Yeah, I started with TOHR, I want to say ’84, ’85. It was founded in ’83, right? Belmonte Right. Dodwell It was already going by then. Mostly men. I think my first meeting I ever went to—that’s when I first met Dennis Neill—was that I was the only woman there. For the most part, I felt accepted, but it was definitely lacking females. (Laughs) They just weren’t there. Either they didn’t know about it or what, or maybe they didn’t feel welcome. Belmonte Were they still meeting in the library at this point? Dodwell Yes. They were meeting at the library. I had talked to Dennis about, “Gosh, we can do this or do that,” or “Gosh, we…” He’s like, “Well, come on aboard!” so I started getting involved with that about a year later. Belmonte What were some of the things you did? Dodwell I was the helpline coordinator, and that’s when we moved and got the office space at 41st and Harvard. I did that for four years, three or four years. Belmonte Describe that experience. What were the calls like, what kind of training went into— Dodwell Oh my gosh, there was a lot of training that was involved. There was tons of volunteers. There were people knocking at the door to volunteer. Belmonte What types of professions were people in? 14 �Dodwell Doctors, lawyers, laymen, I mean, just anything. All kinds of people. We had chefs, and we had counselors; we had unemployed. We had lots of different walks of life, and that’s what’s needed for that kind of thing. We had people who had never done a helpline or anything like that, and so when they would come aboard, they would be terrified. What happens if they get a phone call and somebody is wanting to commit suicide or wanting to do this—and which we had those calls, and we had to talk people either out of it or try to get help to them as soon as possible. It was a lot of trading involved. The phones rang off the hook. It was constantly busy, especially in the evening because people in the community found out that we started having the helpline from eight to ten every night. Oh my gosh, it was just incredible. Belmonte What were some of the more memorable calls you had? Dodwell I had a phone call from a man—actually a straight man who felt that he was a woman. Back then, transgenderism was just not really talked about a whole lot; there was not a lot of education on it. We had books and brochures but not a whole lot of experience with it. He was—I was on the phone with this man for over an hour. He was—didn’t know where to go, how he was going to fit in, and trying to find the resources to help this person was almost impossible. The nearest resource I had was Dallas. While I had him on the phone, I start looking at different resources that we had from different states that surrounded us, and the nearest one I had was Dallas. I remember this guy because he called back, and about two weeks later, he called these other people and said he was better, and he felt much better about the situation, and he was happy and that he might be on the road to recovery for whatever reason. We’d get the calls that—you know, from the kids, they would—that’s normal. A lot of the volunteers would get upset over it. It’s like, they’re just curious. I mean, yeah, if they’re calling you and saying they’re going to kill you, yeah, that’s a different story, but they’re not. Belmonte They would call just to prank call. Dodwell Right. There was a woman who called when I was training somebody, and she was being—she was locked in her bedroom, and she was being beat by her lover. You could hear in the background the sounds of her being hit and the screaming. It was probably the most disturbing phone call that I had ever gotten. The poor guy, it was his first day that he had started working there, just trying to calm her down, but it wasn’t going to make her situation any better unless she was going to get out of there. I was able to get her to get to the phone and pick up the—she threw it on the bed, I guess, and she got the phone, and I got her address. I was able to call the police. That’s probably the worst. There were a whole lot more needy calls if you want to say it because back then is when AIDS was really coming out, and really, people 15 �were being, “What’s this gay disease?” It was a really big deal. Had a lot of phone calls about health issues, and it’s really hard. They’d have to call the Center for Disease Control for the most part because we didn’t have all of that information that they needed. Everybody knew that it was a gay disease, so we also dealt with that, all the different HIV and AIDS calls. Some of them were just—people were just bored, or they’re lonely. I know that there are still people out there like that who need a helpline, and I hope that we do it again. That was a very good experience for me. Belmonte We’re actually talking about reactivating it, trying to keep it going through the day, actually. Dodwell Good, it’s very much needed. Oh, god. Belmonte People call all the time, Dodwell Yes, they do. Belmonte Those pained coming out calls in particular. Dodwell Yeah, the coming out ones. Oh yeah. Oh gosh, yeah. Belmonte You’ve alluded several times to drug and alcohol use in the community. What are your impressions of the role that it’s played in gay life in Tulsa? Do you think the situation is similar now, or has it changed over time? Dodwell Well, even back then, I think the drug use—I don’t really think it was any different than in the straight community. We might have used a little more poppers, but I don’t think there was that much of a difference. As far as the role that it played, I know that, especially when HIV came up so strong and they finally realized what it was, there were so many people who continued to want to use drugs and knew that it could lower your immune system, or it could do some damage to your system for whatever reason. I think as far as—there’s a lot of people in the straight community who think that we’re all about drugs and sex, and maybe they need to look in their own backyard. Belmonte Right. Let’s backtrack a little bit and talk about your nephew. It sounds like he was quite flamboyant. It sounds like you might have had some familiarity with the drag community in Tulsa, which is not something I’ve heard much about. Dodwell Really? Belmonte Could you tell me—well, I have some interviews scheduled, people that are definitely going to fill that gap, but it sounds like you have been seeing drag 16 �shows and knowing the people that perform drag for quite a long time. Care to elaborate on that? Dodwell Sure. I came out during the times when Trudy Tyler used to be real big, real big. Patty and Tuna Melt were real big. Have you heard of them? And Miko, yes. Miko. Belmonte Nico with an N? Dodwell With an M. Belmonte Miko. Okay. Dodwell Yeah, I’m real close to the drag community even today. I think they’re an important part of our community. Sure, they’re dramatic; they’re supposed to be. (Laughs) Early on, the drag community was very small. Now it’s very big in Tulsa. It’s even bigger in different states, but it’s much bigger now than I ever imagined it to be. I just think that they played a really important part in our community and the way that—I don’t know if the mainstream society will ever see them as being okay, but that’s their problem. Belmonte Tell me some about what you think that role is and has been historically? When was the first time you went to a drag club? Dodwell Oh gosh, it was Zipper’s, and it was the early ’80s, ’83 or ’84, something like that. I just fell in love with them. I just did, and I don’t know why. (Laughs) I still don’t know why. (Laughs) I thought they had attitude, and most of them had talent; most of them did. As far as their role in historic— maybe just from their sheer talent and guts and strength, they’re very strong, strong people. Maybe when they just have a wig on, but at least they’re strong then. Maybe if they take the wig off, it’s not so much, but at least they get the point across. I’ve been to drag queen car washes that used to be on Peoria quite a bit, and they would be in full drag in the heat. Can you imagine? Heat and heels: no, no, no. (Laughs) They donated all their money to whatever, and most of the time, most of the drag shows—unless it’s a competition or a pageant or something—they donate their money to causes in the community. They pick certain ones to do that with. There’s always some kind of a drag queen war going on in between each other, but they all do the same thing. Belmonte What were some of the other bars that became known for drag? Dodwell There was Zipper’s, and Tracy’s was a big drag bar, definitely. For a short time, and I don’t know why, but TNT’s was a drag bar. It wasn’t all men, but it was kind of a combination of drag queen and king. They did it for a while, and then of course, there are plenty more now. I know that there’s 17 �another one that was really big into drag, but I can’t remember. Of course, The Jewel Box, (Laughs) yes, with their shag carpet, and The Bamboo. That’s it. There may be more, but those are the ones that I remember the most that people knew that they could call and say, “When are you having your next drag show?” and all of that. Belmonte When was the first time you remember hearing about AIDS in Tulsa? Dodwell While I was working on the helpline. I was on the board, and we got something. Doug Hartson was president at the time, and we got something from the newspaper or somewhere, but we had an emergency board meeting about it. They were talking about this gay disease, and we need to—and also from Nancy McDonald because she was working on something up there too. Just kind of a combination of a couple people. Belmonte How did the community mobilize in response to AIDS? Did it mobilize? Dodwell Well, I think the leaders of the community did, and the health department, of course. Once the news media got a hold of it, that’s all we needed. It was just “Get away from gay people,” “Oh, he’s gay. Yeah, he’s got AIDS. I’m sure.” We had the stigma just probably like every other community did. Ours might have lasted a little longer; there are people still very uneducated over that. Belmonte Did you ever go to follies review or any of the—what were some of the fundraisers along those lines that you recall that helped raise money for AIDS? Dodwell Went to a lot of drag shows. They did that. I went to the follies, and I went to two or three of them at least, maybe more, that the money that was raised went to some sort of research, or through Tulsa Cares, or something like the HIV helping agencies and things like that. Mostly the bars, the bars really kicked in on a lot of things. “We’ll have these shows, no problem. We’ll lower the drink prices so people will come in, and do this.” I think as a community as a whole, I know everybody was terrified. I know they were. They didn’t know what to do, and so they were doing everything they could to maybe make it better. If the money helped, then great. Belmonte Were any of your personal acquaintances or friends victims of the disease? Dodwell Oh yeah. I’ve been to more funerals than I’d prefer to be. My very first friend who died from AIDS is Eric Guinness, and he was a very good friend of mine. When his partner—when he was dying, and his partner took him to the hospital, it was the St. Francis’ in Broken Arrow, took him over there. He was throwing up blood, and he was just really bad. They would not touch 18 �him because they knew he had AIDS. They would not touch him. They told him he needed to go to the one in Tulsa, the hospital in Tulsa. Belmonte Do you recall what year that was? Dodwell That was ’89 or ’90. Belmonte Tell me if you can recall any other instances along those lines: people’s family reactions, people whose partners might have then had clashes with family. Do you recall any instances like that? Dodwell Are you talking about for AIDS? Belmonte For AIDS in particular, with hospital, medical authorities. Dodwell Medical authorities, oh yeah. It was a real big deal. Of course, it was full gown, and facial, and gloves, and everything for everybody that would enter the room, including the doctor and nurses. I was an HIV care coordinator for OSU, and this—just recently I guess. I’d go up to the hospital—even today, would go to the hospitals here, TRMC or any of these hospitals around. It’s awful, but especially like St. John’s and St. Francis, they just don’t know how to treat it; they don’t want to treat it. I don’t know why, whatever, maybe it’s a religious thing. I do know that TRMC is the most compassionate, from my experience, with people like that. As far as reactions, they just get treated differently. Whenever I was going before to my friends and seeing them in the hospital and to now, it’s getting a little better, maybe because education is better, I hope. Back then, even the doctors and the nurses were not as educated as what they should be. They would never think of kissing somebody on the lips who had AIDS. I mean, they just don’t understand what it’s about. Belmonte When did you become an HIV/AIDS educator? Dodwell Let’s see. When I went to work for OSU, that’s how I started— Belmonte OSU Medical School? Dodwell Yeah, off Southwest Boulevard. It was a grant-funded position, so it was a short-term thing. I started doing that four years ago, almost four years ago. I worked there two and a half, three years, two and a half years, I guess. I did testing, HIV testing and counseling. Did the statistics and everything as far as the patients that were coming in. I learned, and I saw a lot. A lot of times they’ll come in to be tested, and they’re straight. It’s like, “I can’t have AIDS because I’m not a homosexual,” so I have to educate them and talk to them, and it takes forever. It was important to me that if they did, if they were positive, they needed to be educated just for the safety of their own 19 �self. I saw a lot in the community. Some people who get AIDS, they have a whole different look at life after they get over all the pissed off stage and everything else, and they kind of get down to it. It’s like, “Okay. Well, let’s see. I’ve got this much to live or not to live or whatever. I’m going to make a difference.” Hopefully they continue to do that, and most of them did. Belmonte Have you had much experience with members of the black gay and lesbian community in Tulsa? Dodwell Very little. Very little. Belmonte Do you have any theories why there may be such a—it’s a tremendous gap in this community along this line. Do you have any impressions as to why that might be? Dodwell Do you really want to know? Belmonte Yeah. Dodwell The ones that I do know—the ones that I’ve met and talked to, I’ve asked them—especially when I was on the board, I would say, “Why are you coming to be on the board? Have you volunteered? Bring some of your friends. We have a resource here, and this is really good.” It was like, “I don’t have enough money for them.” That’s been the rumor for years. What do you do? I say, “No, no, you have this talent. You have this, and you have this. You can do it,” but it’s going to take more than just one or two people to go out and say, “Come on in. Come in and talk to us. Join us here.” Other than being a cultural difference, I don’t know what else it would be. Belmonte Do you think that class gap that you’re alluding to affects a lot of white members of the gay and lesbian community? Dodwell You bet it does. Belmonte Tell me more about that because this is not the first time I’m hearing this charge made at TOHR. (Laughter) Dodwell I have no real issues with TOHR. I believe in it. I want to continue to believe in it. There are a lot of people who are believing right now that it’s an elitist society. As far as—you have to be somebody to be a part of it. I’ve been a part of TOHR since the ’80s. Belmonte For twenty years. Dodwell Yeah. I don’t think I have much of a balance on my checkbook. You know, I don’t have that much money, but I believe in the community, and I believe 20 �in the people in the community. But from what I have heard—I get a lot of emails from people just telling me things that they’ve experienced like, “I went into TOHR. I went into the office, and they looked at me like I was just this bum, and I wasn’t going to be accepted, and I didn’t feel right. They’re all walking around with suits and briefcases.” Anyway, they would say this, and I’d write back and just like, “Give them another chance and go back up there. Try to see what you can do.” There are a lot of people right now—I cannot believe I’m telling you this—but there are just a lot of people that have lost any kind of hope for TOHR. You know that. Belmonte I do know that. As someone who’s on the board, it’s something I care about and hope to change. One of the reasons why I founded this project is I want everyone’s voices to be heard as part of this. Dodwell Right. It’s important to me that people understand that TOHR is what you make it, or the community is what you make it, period. I may not agree with everything that they do, but who does? That’s crazy. Everybody has their own agenda and whatever. I just—there’s a lot of people on the bandwagon right now that are just saying, “Oh, they did this, and they’re doing this. They’re doing that.” One thing that I have preached and preached, and you know, it’s [inaudible] thing. I’ve said, “Keep whining because that’s all you’re going to get is whine. That’s it. Do something about it. Get up off your butt and go down there and volunteer and do something about it. Stop your frickin’ whining.” I will continue to say that. If things work out—if a building is built, and these people still think this way, it doesn’t always— people don’t always come when you build the building. You have to get it going. It takes some time. Belmonte It sounds like you’ve done a lot of different things over the years for the community. You mentioned HIV and the hotline. What are some of the other things that you have done as a volunteer in the community? Dodwell I was on the board. I’ve been on the board twice. The first time was the helpline, and the second time I was the programming. Belmonte What year was this? Dodwell When I was on the board the first time, it was 1985 to ’89. Yes. Belmonte Do you remember who else was on the board with you at that time? Dodwell Penny Humphrey, Doug Hartson, Dwight Kealiher, Bonnie—and I can’t remember her last name. I think she was with Penny. Steve—I can’t remember his name. Anyway, most of the people—I’m sure people who know them will see this—McCurly, Steve McCurly. I think Cynthia Corberay, I think. 21 �Belmonte Cynthia what? Dodwell Corberay, I believe. Yeah. Belmonte Tell me what you felt—what was the board like in that first period? What was TOHR like? Dodwell The board was actually fun. There was a lot of energy, a lot of motivation to get people involved. There were some problems in the sidelines, just like any other board, but they were, for the most part, pretty positive. We had a lot of speakers at our meetings. We did our best to plan events and to increase membership and then members coming in to the center. We had a little—a small library, and I think we had a few videos people could check out, but not a lot. The main focus of the actual office was the helpline. It was a big deal. It was really kind of nice to be on the board and just to see—or to be a part of TOHR at that time. There were a lot of changes that were going on: some negative, some positive. Belmonte Give me some examples. Dodwell The negatives were changing with AIDS and having to make those precautions. Changes with—as far as positive—just more people being interested in what’s going on. We have more—we had garage sales and things to raise money for different events that were coming up. The follies were real big, and of course gay pride. The picnics were really big too. Belmonte Tell me about those. What was the first one of those that you went to? Dodwell I went to my first picnic—it was at Mohawk. Belmonte How did you guys get the word out in the community? Dodwell Through the bars, for the most part, and through—some through TOHR but mostly through the bars. Lots of signs. That was when the bars are the ones really who put it on. People from TOHR and other people came to it, but they would cook hot dogs, and they’d have hamburgers. It was just—they’d have their kids there and whatever. It would be a big, ole—well, by the end of the day, it was a drunk fest, but it was fun! (Laughter) Belmonte Do you remember how many people would go to those? Dodwell Hundreds. It was pretty big. Never really had any trouble at Mohawk Park that I know of. Went there a couple of summers a couple of times, two that I know of, maybe three. Then it was moved to another park on the west side 22 �of Tulsa, and we were there for a couple of years. I think from there it went to Veteran’s Park. Belmonte Do you—you remember ever going to the Black and White parties? Dodwell Oh yeah. Belmonte Tell me what those were like. Dodwell Well, the first Black and White I went to, The Village People were there to perform. That’s when I took my mother. That was a lot of fun. People were in there—I mean, it was packed. It was at the fairgrounds; it was packed. It was every combination of black and white you can imagine was there. Some people were in tuxes, some people had limos they’d come in, and they would—of course that’s when I think the bar—it was an open bar, you didn’t have to pay or something. I can’t remember, but it was a real big deal because they had to limit your drinks. The music was great, and it was just—it was a huge success. I went to three of them. I do remember, however, whenever the Black and White used to be by invitation only, and if you didn’t know somebody who was going or who was a part of it, then you couldn’t get in. I remember that. I was so mad because I thought, “Why?” Belmonte It changed from an invitation-only event to one that was publicized, and you could just pay at the door? Is that what you’re telling me? Dodwell Yeah, several years later. There, for a while it was like, “You got Black and White too? How did you do that? Who do you know?” It was a big deal. Belmonte Did you go to any of the Harwelden? Dodwell No, I did not. No. Belmonte Which remains invitation-only. Okay. Dodwell Yeah. Belmonte You were on the TOHR board. What made you get off the board the first time? Dodwell I think I had some personal issues with my family that I had to pay attention to that I wasn’t able to do it. I was still involved; I just stepped down from the—well, from the helpline the first time. The second time that I was on the board, I was helping take care of an elderly family member, my ex’s. Belmonte What year was this? 23 �Dodwell This was just a little over two years ago. I wasn’t going to have time. Well, they were also phasing out the programming, and so basically I wasn’t going to be on the board anymore. I thought, “This is probably a good time for me to step down.” Belmonte What was the rationale behind that? Dodwell Let’s see. Belmonte I know some of this might be sensitive in terms of personalities. Dodwell No, that’s okay! People are people. They’ve got to do what they’ve got to do. We had a training with the board. It was downtown, and it was a whole day training. At that training, they decided to go ahead and eliminate the programming of TOHR. I thought, “Okay, where does this leave me?” They wanted to do it until either they got a building or until they got things a little more straightened out with legalities. We had issues—we had so many programs that we wanted to work. We had one for the elderly where we could go and check on our lesbian and gay elderly people and make sure they were okay, run to the store if we needed to or whatever, and we had volunteers to do that. Issues came up with—“What if they didn’t have insurance on their car? Is it going to come back to TOHR because they’re volunteering in TOHR?” It was just—it just kept building and building and building, and it got to the point where it was like, “Okay, wait. We need to stop. We can’t have these programs anymore.” We had the Rainbow Families, which was huge, and they met at the center, and then they met in other different places. There were some people who were uncomfortable with children being in the center. Mainly—there were some of the transgendered people who were a little concerned because they didn’t want to confuse them, because a lot of times they would be dressing in one room, and they didn’t want the kids to run into the room and things like that. It was just—it was kind of a legal thing. They wanted to have everything written and drawn up, and they wanted to have enough volunteers to run those programs. We didn’t at the time. People were dropping out of TOHR just right and left because of whatever they disagreed with or whatever. Belmonte What were some of those reasons? Do you recall? Dodwell Most of the reasons were—they felt like—they would volunteer information; they would say, “Okay, I have an idea. Why don’t we do this or this or this?” and then someone on the board or whatever would just say, “Well, that’s a stupid idea.” Or, they would make time to come to our board meeting, which usually was like five hours long. 24 �Belmonte Still is. (Laughs) Dodwell They would make time to go, and they would sit there during the whole meeting. It’s like “No, we need to get them out of here and listen to what they have to say.” When they would listen to what they had to say, nobody else would respond to it. They would say, “Well, okay. We’ll look at it.” They would leave the room, and as soon as they would, they would just turn the paper over and go, “Okay, next.” They wouldn’t about it. They wouldn’t even think about an idea or a problem or something like that. There were a lot of emotions involved whenever I was involved the last time I was on the board. As far as changes and people getting hurt or feeling like they weren’t being listened to or that “Oh, it’s just like it was before. You’ve got to have a lot of money. You’ve got to be a man before you’re in TOHR.” I don’t believe that myself, really, but you know… Belmonte This was in the—this period you’re talking about now, be more chronologically specific. Dodwell Chronologically specific. About three years ago. Belmonte Was this when Carrie and Greg were the president—who was president during this period? Dodwell Brent. Belmonte Brent. Okay. Dodwell Yes, Brent was, and Carrie was President Emeritus. There were issues even there. Greg was still on the board, too. Belmonte Right. They were—this was when Dee was president very briefly, and Brent came up. Dodwell Yes, I was on the board then, too. Belmonte I’m sure there was some fallout in the wake of that. Dodwell Yeah, there was. I will say something, though. I will say that I don’t know what Dee did. I don’t know what she did, but it was—considering the time I have known about TOHR and the things that TOHR has done, she is the only person who has every brought that many people into the center, in my opinion, in history of TOHR. I don’t know how she did it. I know she probably did some things, and maybe she shouldn’t have, but she brought the community together more than I have seen anybody else. I don’t even—I don’t know Dee all that well, but I just know that I wish we could do that again because we were having people—we had waiting lists for people to 25 �get a space at the center. There were that many people there. It was just incredible. You’d go into the center, and you’d have to go down the hall and squeeze through people and stuff; they’re everywhere. I just wanted to say that. Belmonte That’s good to know. Bought all of her volunteer mobilization policies. (Laughter) Dodwell No kidding. Belmonte That’s one thing that’s very interesting about being a historian: there are many sides of the same event. I’m sure that Dee’s take on this would differ from others. Dodwell It might even differ from mine. (Laughs) Belmonte Right. Were you involved on the board when they started having the gay pride march? Dodwell You mean the… Belmonte The actual march that precedes the festival. Dodwell Yeah. Well, was I? No, I wasn’t on the board when they first did it. No, I was not. Belmonte Okay. We talked about the origins of that some. Oh! Let’s talk about your alter ego, Dyke Divine! How could we not talk about that? How long have you done this? Did you do it before email? Tell me some about the history of Dyke Divine. How could I forget that? Oh my goodness. Dodwell (Laughs) I’ve been doing the Dyke Divine thing for a little over six years, roughly. How it started was my mother got really sick, and I needed an outlet over something. I was depressed, and upset, and I didn’t really know what to do, and so I started to write. There was a guy named David Jennings, a real asshole—oh, sorry. Anyway. Belmonte That’s okay. (Laughter) There’s profanity on it elsewhere. Dodwell Okay. He did something called GayTulsa.org. I was starting to read his stuff, and it was like, oh my gosh, he was horrible. He was cutting down the bars and all this. I thought he was very funny, but some of the stuff was like, “Man, that’s going to get you killed!” Well, I started writing to him, and as I did that, he said, “If you’ve got something to say, why don’t you write for me?” “Okay then.” I just started doing that, and I started just being myself and writing about things and people. Sometimes I did bar reviews, and 26 �usually that got me death threats. I started with the community and talking about those kind of things. Belmonte Do you have hard copies of a lot of these things? Dodwell You bet I do. Belmonte Would you be willing to donate copies of them to the project? Dodwell Sure, you bet. Belmonte Great. We’ll talk about that in the future. Dodwell I just started to get emails. I mean, I would open my email, and I’d have thirty, forty a day. It was like, oh my gosh, it’s like, “When are you going to write again? When are you going to write again?” He’d post all of my articles and things, and I’d try to write every other day. Then people started writing, just like, “You know, you really helped. You helped me.” It’s like, “I can’t get enough of you.” Belmonte What type of things would you write about? Dodwell Sometimes I would write about breakups. I went through a really—well, it should have been a better breakup than what it was. Belmonte Isn’t that always the case, though? Dodwell Everybody tried to help. I wrote this really, really, really, really bad article about people minding their own frickin’ business. It was a hit, (Laughs) and I just—I didn’t stop. I think part of it, I was angry about my mom. I didn’t want her to be sick, but it was a real good release for me. I never mentioned anybody’s names, and most of the time—most of my articles have a lot to do with something I’ve either experienced personally, or I know personally somebody else who has done it, but I don’t use other people’s names. Sometimes it’s like, give me a break. It’s like the whining thing. I wrote about that. It’s like, you know, just shit or get off the pot. Come on. I don’t believe that people—maybe I say things—and I’ve heard this from a lot of people, but I say things that most people don’t, or never would want to say to anybody else in their life, because I try to tell people how it is. I try to do it. I love to write. Then I figured out that I had something to say to the community, and they were listening. Oh my god, they were listening to me. (Laughs) Belmonte Thirty, forty emails a day, boy, that’s a lot of time to invest in— 27 �Dodwell Yeah, and it got more. I got a whole lot more. Then I finally got my own domain, and I have my own site now in which I do all my own stuff. Oh man. Belmonte Did you teach yourself how to do all of the web design and everything? Dodwell Yeah. Belmonte You started building this rather amazing email database. How many people do you think are in that list now? Dodwell I have 2,800 people on my list. Belmonte That’s impressive. Dodwell (Laughs) It’s a lot. Yeah, it’s about 2,800. Belmonte Mostly women? Dodwell Combination. A lot of straight people and just people who have said, “Put me on the email list. I want that.” Belmonte What do you do? You do a weekly newsletter, postings, what do you use this list for mainly? Dodwell To give information out about things that are going on in the community. I don’t use it for things—that other email that was going around. I might send that to one or two people but not the community. It’s usually community events. I don’t know, just—I believe that these—I don’t know. I kept telling my ex, I said, “How in the world are they—it’s like they’re not working or sleeping or something. It’s like they’ve emailed me two, three times a day.” I didn’t know what to do with all that. Boy, let me tell you: it gets your head really big. I had to really watch it. (Laughs) Belmonte That’s clearly serving a need. Dodwell Yeah, I’m glad I am. It makes me feel good, makes me feel really good. Terry You’ve got a big gay pride parade, and she wore a t-shirt, and on the back it said “Dyke Divine.” People would walk up and go, “Oh man, I love your website!” Belmonte That’s great. In some ways, it strikes me as you’ve just taken the helpline work you did digital. 28 �Dodwell Yes. Then I’ll get an email that will say “searching for help.” I’m like, “Oh god, here we go.” It’s like, “Okay.” Sometimes it’s something real basic, and sometimes it’s, “I need to get out of this abusive situation,” or “I just left my husband. I know I’m a lesbian, but he’s going to kill me.” There’s just—I can’t stop it because now people depend on it. It took me a while to figure that out. I was just like, “Oh, they don’t pay attention.” The very first—two prides ago, maybe three, I was DJ’ing at the picnic. It was when, right in the middle of the ole Dyke Divine thing going, and girls would come up and they’d always be like, “Where’s Dyke Divine?” They would come up to the picnic thing; they’d come up to my little booth, and they’d go, “Can you sign my shirt?” (Laughs) “Sure,” and I’d dot my I’s. (Laughter) It’s been a lot of fun. It really has. I’m glad it’s helped some people. Belmonte That’s great. I think I have covered a lot of ground with you here, and I certainly appreciate your time, both of your time. Unless you have anything you’d like to add … Dodwell I do have one thing I’d like to add. I want to tell you a small story about—it was Christmastime, and we did what’s called a fairy tree at the center. It was for people who had some kids or knew people who had kids that might need some help at Christmas. The whole community would get together, and they would buy gifts. They would bring them to the—instead of an angel tree, we called it a fairy tree. Anyway, we were there one night, and a whole bunch of us were there, and there was a guy that came in. He looked like just this big, ole, burly—this bald-headed boy; he was just tough-looking. He said, “Is this TOHR?” and I said “Yes it is.” He said, “I’ve got some toys for you. You may want to come out and get them.” I thought, “I don’t even know this guy. Okay.” I went out, and he did. His whole back end of his truck was full of toys. We were on our way out there, and he said, “I can’t use them anymore,” and he would bring the toys. He starts bringing them in and all this. On the last load, he’s bringing them in; he starts to cry. He said, “You want to know why I’m doing this?” I said, “Okay.” He said, “I just came from”—he had just came from his parents’ house, and I guess his—not his parents, his oldest daughter’s house. His oldest daughter would not let him give all these gifts. He had four grandchildren he had never met. She would not let him see them, or give them gifts, or even leave the gifts for them because he was gay. He was in tears. This big man put the sack down, and he just grabbed me and just was crying. He said, “I don’t know what I would have done if you all would not have been open.” That is why we need [inaudible], and that was why we need [inaudible]. Belmonte That’s a pretty poignant way to end this, and I appreciate your time. This concludes this interview. 29 �------- End of interview ------- 30 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Moving Image A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2004] Anna Dodwell Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 1, 2004 Subject The topic of the resource Anna Dodwell Oral History Project Interview from August 1, 2004 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on August 1, 2004. Anna was born on September 7th, 1963, in Tulsa. She attended public schools in Tulsa. Around 1983, she became aware of Oklahomans for Human Rights, Tulsa Chapter, [predecessor to Oklahomans for Equality] through her contact with its Helpline. She recalls the bar life around this time and other aspects of the Tulsa LGBTQ+ community. She became an active volunteer with OHR and then its successor organization Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights, serving on the board and active participant with the Helpline. Through Oklahoma State University, she became a HIV/AIDS educator. She wrote the highly popular “Dyke Divine.” She discusses the various challenges facing the organization and the “class” divide within the community. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Anna Dodwell, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2004 AIDS AIDS/HIV AIDS/HIV education Anna Dodwell bar life Dyke Divine helpline HIV HIV Education HIV/AIDs interview Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte OHR OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (OSU) Oklahomans for Human Rights Oklahomans for Human Rights - Tulsa Chapter oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript OSU TOHR TOHR helpline transcript Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) video https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/32e307a0685da0fb5f8040d6f08cb1b1.pdf fd3f6b5c66d8a54057fa6de42efc2548 PDF Text Text �� https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/b2ad68bab393a8daeab66932c8b732cc.mp4 695b4045be1db9636b36095e53ee809b https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/d80dffbe6a60cfe98ea0c621c945cda6.pdf 3d4ca6adb7c861d4cb1bb9201eb77d39 PDF Text Text 1 oklahomans for equality Oklahomans for Equality Oral History Interview with Barry Hensley and Terry Baxter Interview Conducted by Toby Jenkins Date: June 30, 2026 Transcribed By: Dennis Neill using Reduct.Video July 10, 2026 Restrictions: Interviewee requested: N/A Oklahomans for Equality History Project 621 E. 4th Street Tulsa, OK. 74120 918.743.4297 historyproject@okeq.org �2 About Barry Hensley and Terry Baxter: Summary This episode features a conversation with two long-time partners from Tulsa, Oklahoma, sharing their life stories, experiences with the LGBTQ+ community, and insights into the history of gay life in Texas and Oklahoma. Discover their journey through love, family rejection, activism, and resilience. In this episode, Terry Baxter and Barry Hensley share their experiences with LGBTQ+ advocacy, their careers in public service, and personal stories of love and resilience. Discover how their efforts have shaped community acceptance and the importance of authenticity. Keywords LGBTQ+ history, Tulsa, Oklahoma, gay rights, family rejection, activism, HIV/AIDS, coming out, community, personal stories LGBTQ+ advocacy, Tulsa, public service, marriage equality, community activism, personal stories, diversity, inclusion, history, Pride Chapters 00:00 Celebrating Pride and Public Service 01:59 A Love Story: How They Met 06:06 Life in Dallas: The Early Years 09:50 Facing the AIDS Crisis Together 12:03 Childhood and Family Background 19:56 College Life and Early Relationships 27:48 Moving to Tulsa: A New Beginning 30:40 Coming Out and Family Dynamics 36:10 Reconciliation and Family Relationships �3 38:38 Childhood and Family Background 44:42 High School Experiences and Friendships 50:10 College Life and Activism 01:03:37 Community Connections and Support 01:04:12 Early Community Engagement and Pride Events 01:07:54 Library Displays and LGBTQ Representation 01:13:17 Involvement of PFLAG and Community Outreach 01:15:27 Building LGBTQ Literature Collections 01:18:03 Experiences at College Hill Presbyterian Church 01:29:14 Marriage Equality Journey and Community Support 01:32:52 A Memorable Wedding in Victoria 01:34:36 The Importance of Legal Recognition in Relationships 01:36:01 Insights from Working in Municipal Government 01:49:30 Navigating Politics and Civil Service 01:52:06 The Evolution of Anti-Discrimination Policies 02:03:48 Reflections on Life and Legacy Barry Hensley and Terry Baxter Oral History Interview June 30, 2026 Toby Jenkins: Good morning, it is June 30th, 2026, the last day of Pride Month. And so, viewers, we have for you a very special treat. Individuals who spent their life in public service. It's such an honor and we have so much respect for them. Today, our interview and panel is Dennis Neill, founder of Oklahomans for Equality, Mary Bishop-Baldwin, here a part of the archives. And the marriage plaintiff from the marriage equality lawsuit. And this is Toby Jenkins. We're in the Joe and Nancy McDonald Rainbow Library at the Dennis R Neill Equality Center, headquarters of Oklahomans for Equality. And the dead center of the country, we're the gay outpost in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Today, our guests are very special to me and always been an inspiration. Could you please introduce yourselves? Barry Hensley: I'm Barry Hensley. Terry Baxter: I'm Terry Baxter. Toby Jenkins: Terry Baxter. And just give us your age. �4 Barry Hensley: I am 67. Terry Baxter: I am 72. Toby Jenkins: And you look marvelous. And just to blow our audience away, how long have you gentlemen been a couple? Terry Baxter: 46 years. Toby Jenkins: Yes. So we're just going to get started. And they've had incredible eyewitness accounts of our region and this part of the United States. But I just, if it's all right with our panel, I'd like to start at the very beginning part, how they met each other. And then we'll work backwards from the early part of your life. Barry Hensley: Sure. Toby Jenkins: And then your careers over the last 47 years. All right. So tell us the good stuff. Tell us, boys, how you met. Terry Baxter: I went to the University of Texas at Arlington for my undergraduate. And I met a guy there and we became friends. And he ran a flower shop in a mall when he wasn't at school. And so we stayed friends after I graduated from college. And every year he'd have a Halloween party, and people would dress up and come over and have fun. And Barry also went to University of Texas at Arlington. But being younger than me, I never knew he was there or anything. But he also met this mutual friend because he would go to the mall when he was bored and buy flowers for the apartment that he was living in. Barry Hensley: I’d go to the record stores and the bookstores. Terry Baxter: And all that stuff. So we ended up, both of us, going to the same party one year at this guy's house for Halloween. And we met each other at a Halloween party. I was dressed up in a bad toga. I looked like a, and I had a beard and a wreath over my head. Barry Hensley: It was the animal house era. Terry Baxter: Yeah. So I kind of looked like an animal house victim. And he was dressed up like a, I guess, what? Barry Hensley: I had a World War II sailor outfit on and a little hat and a necklace. So maybe an Andrews’ sister, maybe. Something like that. And I was very, very shy. Very withdrawn. And I was there with a friend. I kind of stuck by him. Because I didn't know anybody except the host. And everywhere I went in that house, Terry was right there. I'd go in the dining room to get something to eat and there's Terry. And I'd go in the living room where people were watching TV and there's Terry. Wherever I went, Terry was. Terry Baxter: I was magic. Barry Hensley: So we hit it off pretty fast. And the following Tuesday was election day, 1980, November 4th, I guess it was. And we had arranged a date to go to the Granada �5 Theater out in East Dallas to watch Elizabeth Taylor double feature, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Butterfield Eight. And so Terry has come to the condo where I was staying. There were four of us living there, college years, you know. A whole pile of us in this condo. And Terry knocks on the door to pick me up for this date. And I let him in. I introduced him to my friends. And he said, what are you all doing? And they said, oh, we're watching the election results. Reagan is ahead. And Terry said, oh, good. And I said, WHAT? Terry Baxter: That was almost the beginning of the end. Barry Hensley: Almost the beginning of the end. We managed to work it out. But that was how we met. Terry Baxter: Well, Anderson. Barry Hensley: I know. I voted for John Anderson that year. I was so irritated with some of the stuff that Jimmy Carter had done, which of course I'd love to have back now. But at the time it seemed like... Terry Baxter: I'd like to have Reagan back now. Barry Hensley: I know. Yeah. So that's how we met. Toby Jenkins: In Texas. Barry Hensley: In Texas, Dallas. Toby Jenkins: So the city of Tulsa owes Texas a debt of gratitude. You met in Texas and was it love at first sight or did you, I mean, were you able to overlook his... Barry Hensley: I was unaccustomed to such attention, so it took me a while to kind of figure out, you know, what this was like. Terry Baxter: It was okay. Barry Hensley: So, I hadn't really been much of a dater or anything, and I didn't really have a lot of experience. I was 20, but it wasn't really part of my reality, and so it was a new experience for me. So, it took about till January before we finally decided that we were probably going to try to make a go of staying together. I think I moved in later that spring or early summer. Toby Jenkins: In Arlington? Barry Hensley: Well, it was in Dallas. I was commuting, actually, with Tom Neal. He was another one of the roommates, and he was getting his architecture graduate degree at UTA, and I was still getting my communications bachelor's degree at UTA, so we would carpool every morning from Dallas to Arlington. Terry Baxter: So while he was carpooling to go to school, I was carpooling to go to work. Barry Hensley: But it was good. Dallas was fun at that time, in the early 80s. It was a lot of fun to be down there. �6 Toby Jenkins: What were kind of some of the things that y'all did? I mean, did you go to the Cedar Springs afternoon gig? Barry Hensley: Oh, yeah. Cedar Springs was really hopping, the restaurants and the gift shops, and the Village Station was there. We weren't really bar people. I mean, Terry had been, like the Old Plantation was. The Old Old Plantation, which was downtown Dallas. So we didn't really do the bar stuff, but it was so exciting to be in that place at that time. Divine came in to do a book signing at one of the bookstores, it's like, wow, this is crazy. Crossroads Market. Crossroads Market. And just a fun, fun neighborhood to be in. I did have a friend, another, it was Tom and Laurie and a friend of mine named Al. The four of us were living together on Cedar Springs, just north of the Strip. And Al was a playboy, and he liked to stay out late. And one night I got a call, the phone rang for us, a landline back then, and asked me to come pick him up. And he had run down, he was walking back from the bars and had been accosted on the street. He was at one of the toll booths at the Dallas North Tollway, which was right off Cedar Springs there. And so I picked him up and we went right over to St. Paul's Hospital. They really worked him over. That was the only time that really happened. I don't think we ever felt afraid or anything at that time in the Cedar Springs area. Terry Baxter: We didn't walk around by ourselves at two in the morning, in the middle of the night. Barry Hensley: That wasn't, no, I've always been an early to bed and late to rise sort of person. Terry Baxter: He's early to bed and I'm late to rise, make that work. Toby Jenkins: It should have been, at the time, the proliferation of gay bars as finding ourselves all across the country and bars opening up all over the place. Barry Hensley: J.R.'s was there, Hunky's was there. And they're still there. Yeah, J.R.'s is still there, yeah. Terry Baxter: And every bar had their own kind of clientele. So no matter what you were into, you always had a place to go and feel, at least feel that other people were kind of like you were. Toby Jenkins: So this would have been the 1980s? Barry Hensley: We were there until I graduated in 83 and was living with Terry then. He had bought a condo down off of Maple, still in the neighborhood. And I was having trouble getting a job. And he worked for MCI, the telephone company. And you were a regional manager, is that what it's called? And so he managed to get me a job temporarily, we thought, when the mail girl had to go on pregnancy leave and I filled in for her and they liked me. So I stayed and they found another spot for me at the customer service office. Terry Baxter: He did a much better job than she did. �7 Barry Hensley: And so it was great. We were both working for MCI. That was the company at that time. Man, they were giving Ma Bell a run for her money. And Sprint was hot on our tails, and it was exciting to work there. It was a lot of fun. Toby Jenkins: But it was pre-cell phone. Barry Hensley: Right, right. This is 1983, 84. Toby Jenkins: Okay, just curious, you're in Dallas, which had a pretty large organized gay movement. And you just, young men, you just found each other and got with each other. Do you remember at that time when you began to hear about AIDS and HIV infections? Barry Hensley: We have always been, one of the things that was so frustrating to me is that if Mary's suit [referring to Mary Bishop-Baldwin and the marriage equality lawsuit] had come before the Supreme Court in the 80s and we had gotten that passed back then and the American public was able to get on at that time, which would have encouraged young men to partner up, you know, we were off the market basically, I guess is a way to say it, at that time. So we avoided that situation. Lost so many friends. Absolutely heartbreaking. Terry Baxter: I was in the Turtle Creek Chorale at the time. Yeah. Barry Hensley: When they first started. Toby Jenkins: The Gay Men’s Chorus. Terry Baxter: Yes, and I guess my first problem with AIDS was having friends getting sick and dying that were in the choir with me. One of the unfortunate events was we had a concert and the guy who was supposed to sing one of the tenor solos got too sick to sing, and so I just got to sing his solo for him and I felt, in a way, I felt good because here was my chance to sing a solo, but then you're singing because somebody else is sick and not able to sing, and when you're a singer, that's a very important part of your life, and it was very crazy that you know that people were treating it like it was his problem rather than a disease and or something he did that he deserved, instead of just luck or bad luck. We both are thankful that we got each other when we did, because we both have had so many friends pass because of HIV/AIDS and other things too. But if we had been continuing dating and doing the typical gay lifestyle that the Bible Thumpers talk about at that time, we might have been subject to that bad luck as well. Barry Hensley: As I said, that wasn't really our reality. Yeah, we didn't. We didn't date a lot and go out a lot, so I don't know what our you know who knows what your chances I mean I had. Terry Baxter: I could count on two hands and I had one longtime boyfriend who's still a good friend of both of ours- yeah, our best friends, yeah, but you know, that was the extent. Barry Hensley: I was ready to settle down with the white picket fence when I was 14. �8 Toby Jenkins: Beautiful, okay. So thank you so much for starting right there. But you know you found each other, you got with each other and you were an eyewitness to history together. But you have a pre-story before you got together. So let's pick that up. Terry, tell us a little bit about your childhood, your family background and your when you came out as gay or whenever you decided to live your authentic life. Terry Baxter: Okay, let's see, I was born in the 50s and in Dallas, Texas. You barely made it to elementary school in Dallas and you know, when you're in elementary school there's no gay or straight. You're just a person. And you know some of the videos we've watched there. They've talked about being bullied and stuff a lot. I'm sure I was kind of effeminate because you look at pictures of me, but you know, if anybody tried to bully me, I would just turn to them say, look, you bully me. Your parents are going to get a lawsuit and you don't want that to be your responsibility and they go. They didn't know what to do with being faced with reality instead of somebody wanting to fight back or run. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: And what made you have the presence as a child to say I'll sue you? Terry Baxter: I was a. I was a- what do you call it? Smartass. And that may be what kept me from being bullied more, because I could speak rings around other people. In fourth grade I had a teacher and a friend of mine. We were sitting in the back of the class. I usually sat near the front of the class because I didn't want to be distracted, but in this English class I was sitting in the back for some reason and we were talking and she was up there like Charlie Brown's teacher. So she says: Mr. Baxter, yes, ma'am, you're back there having a conversation. Would you please tell me what you just said? Well, I just said, and I said sure, and I quoted her verbatim because part of my brain was listening to her and part of it was involved in the conversation. So I was even kind of smart. I got all A's on grades, but then I always got marked down on citizenship because I wasn't. You know, I was. You know, Terry's a good student, but he needs to learn how to keep his mouth shut. Barry Hensley: And somehow, he never got fired. Figure out how that happened. Terry Baxter: Because I was smarter than the people I was working for, and so my father worked for the government, federal government, General Services Administration- and they built a new federal building in Fort Worth and so half of the government workers who had positions in Dallas were transferred to Fort Worth. And so that would happen to coincide with me leaving elementary school and going into junior high school. And my sister was sad because she was a freshman in high school, and all the people she had grown up with, she wasn't gonna be going to high school. And my brother was one year younger than me, so he was in sixth grade, so he didn't get to graduate from elementary school. Not that we really had any official thing like they do now when you graduate from every grade you go to. So we moved to Fort Worth, and I went to junior high and high school in Fort Worth. �9 When I went back to my reunions, I was happy to see how many gay people there were, but upset that I didn't know that they were when I was in high school, because we just didn't talk about things like that. Toby Jenkins: So did you know that you had feelings that were different than most of your classmates? Terry Baxter: Yeah, even in elementary school, we lived across the street from a 23acre park with a recreation center that had two basketball areas and a swimming pool and all that kind of stuff. And I would go watch the basketball games, not because I liked basketball, but because I liked seeing the guys in the shorts run around on the basketball floor. That wasn't in my head, I wasn't thinking I'm gonna go watch the guys in the skimpy shorts play basketball, or I wouldn't be thinking I'm gonna go look at the guys in the speedos in the swimming pool. It's just what I innately was attracted to, but I didn't think about it. So I don't say I didn't know why, because there was no knowledge of anything. It's just, I recollect as being an older person in high school that I, yes, there were signs of that when I was in as far back as elementary school. But there was never any action on it, because it was, you know, I became a Christian when I was 12, and... Toby Jenkins: What was your family background? Terry Baxter: My dad was a Methodist, my mother was a Baptist. My mother grew up in South Georgia, where they still have Confederate statues in the park. And my dad grew up in Chicago, so we had a blended, so we would go one week to the Baptist church, one week to the Methodist church, back and forth. And one time, my sister and brother and I just got together and said, we wanna join a church. And they said, well, which one do you wanna join? We said, the Methodist church. So I guess we were progressives even back then as kids. But, and later on in life, one of the interim pastors at my current church, when we were going between pastors, asked, how did you reconcile being gay with being Christian? And I said, well, there was never a reason to reconcile it, because I was Christian first, before I was sexual, anything. And then when I became having a sexual awareness, it was just another part of me. It had nothing to do with my Christianity. And so there was nothing for me to reconcile with. It was for other people to reconcile. Toby Jenkins: It wasn't a faith struggle? Terry Baxter: I never had a faith struggle, because God loved me, and it had nothing to do with my sex or the color of my hair or anything. So in high school, I didn't. I mean, it was funny that I found out about all these people that were gay, who they must have known each other was gay, but I never knew it. But I was the good kid that would go to, I'd go to school. After school was over, the church we went to was across the street from the school. So we'd go over there in the youth room and play pool and listen to records, early 70s records, Led Zeppelin and all that stuff on the turntable. So- �10 Barry Hensley: And you're still friends with those folks? Terry Baxter: Yeah. Went 50th reunion, and I mean, a couple of them we visited when we were in San Diego. AndBarry Hensley: Visiting another one next week in Portland. Terry Baxter: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: And this, you would have graduated from Fort Worth High School? Terry Baxter: Yeah, Paschal High School in Fort Worth. Toby Jenkins: And that would have been what year? Terry Baxter: 72. Toby Jenkins: And how many would have been in your graduating class? How big was that? Terry Baxter: 830. Toby Jenkins: So it was a large...is that a suburban school? Terry Baxter: It was the original Fort Worth High School, and it's not downtown, but it's close to downtown, and they built other schools as the city grew out. And so it was... and then at the time, I would have had 1,200 people in my graduating class, but the year I was a senior, they split, they built a new school, and some of the people went to that school. Toby Jenkins: So you went from there to Arlington to school, right into college? Terry Baxter: Right, right into college. I moved into a dorm, didn't know anybody, had a strange roommate. He brought a deep fat fryer into the room, because that's what he wanted to cook with, because his parents owned some kind of restaurant in Tyler, Texas, and he grew up eating deep fat fried everything. I'm just thinking about that deep fat fryer and all that grease and everything in the dorm room, and the smell. Barry Hensley: Don't think they allow that now. Terry Baxter: No, I don't either. I had a hot plate so I could heat up my soup. That was before microwaves. Toby Jenkins: So in college, did you begin to explore your sexuality? Terry Baxter: Yeah, when I went to college, I realized in high school that I was gay, but I didn't, I don't think I called it that. I just liked guys, and I didn't call myself a homosexual, as some people did. So I went to college, and I just, the guy that I told you a little bit about earlier, I met him, and we became friends and boyfriends, and we were, gosh, several years during school. Then when I graduated, he was still in school one more year, and two more years, and I moved to Plano because I got a job in Plano, and so we weren't living together anymore, �11 and we decided it would be okay for us to just break up and be friends. And then, interestingly, when I moved back to Dallas, we got back together, and then we just kind of drifted apart, partly because I was living with him when I met Barry, so Barry broke us up. And we would go to the bars. The Old, Old Plantation that was on Harwood in Dallas, we would go there on Sundays right after about two o'clock in the afternoon for the tea dance. You'd pay a dollar cover, well drinks are ten cents, and they fed you a good meal. They had an actual cook there that would make turkey and dressing and green beans one week, or fried chicken another week, and so basically for a couple bucks, you'd have a whole afternoon of socializing and dancing and eating, and you'd go there at 2 in the afternoon and go home Sunday night at 2 in the morning and hope you can get to work the next day. Dennis Neill: Terry, while you were at the University, what was your major or your extracurricular activities, and was there an organized gay community as part of the student campus life? Terry Baxter: If there was an organized community, I think that organized after Barry was there. Barry Hensley: Yes, I was part of it. Terry Baxter: Yeah, he helped start it, so there wasn't an organized gay community when I first started. Toby Jenkins: Visible, there wasn't a visible… Terry Baxter: Yeah, there wasn't an organized, I'm sure, right, and there was only one bar in Arlington, Texas, and it started up when I was a junior. So, you know, Tim was a, he wouldn't care, Tim was my, the guy I was dating at the time, was a film major, and I was a biology major, except I took all my other subjects were business classes, interestingly. My goal was to become a doctor, but that didn't happen because I didn't have perfect grades. I still talk too much, and it was during an era when the state medical schools in Texas were really striving to get women and minorities into the medical field because they'd always been kind of white men, and so even when I would have an interview, I could tell that they were just interviewing because they should, and not because they were really looking for another white guy to put into medical school. So I was taking business classes. Anyway, there wasn't an official recognition of it at the time. Barry can tell you about when he started it. I went to Plano because I had worked as a teller in banks when I was in school all the time and that's how I got kind of into financial stuff and I decided, since I had a biology degree and a minor in chemistry, I should at least try to use that degree somewhere. So I went to Plano, Texas, where Anderson Clayton Foods- which got bought up by Kraft ultimately- but they're the ones who had Chiffon margarine- it's not nice to fool mother nature- and Seven Seas Green Goddess salad dressing and all that kind of stuff and Mrs �12 Tucker's shortening. It was a viable company, and I went there and did my job to develop imitation cheese products and it was interesting at first. But then I realized that standing in a lab by myself all day in a lab coat, making minute adjustments to recipes to create imitation cheese and then holding panels for people to taste them and say which one's better and using that as your path to make it better, and not having any communication with people- I was in the lab eight hours a day by myself and I'm a talker and it's hard to talk to the blender that's blending up your imitation cheese. Barry Hensley: But to this day we'll be in the grocery store and he'll grab something. He'll look at it, look at all the chemicals in it and verbalize: oh, this one's okay, oh, you shouldn't have this. You know, put that back on the shelf. So he knows stuff. Terry Baxter: And when I was at a restaurant one time, I said the cheese in this is imitation and it's not a good one. And Barry said: how can you tell? I said because it tastes like a barnyard and it's just…You know, you develop the sensitivity to those things. I decided to go back into the banking business and moved back into Dallas and worked at a small bank- metro bank- in downtown Dallas and the lady who I worked with, the supervisor of the drive-in that I was working in, felt threatened by me, not in a physical sense but because I was smart and quick and being noticed by the management of the place. So her daughter got me an interview at MCI in the credit department, and I interviewed there and got that job. So I'd say it made her feel better and it made me feel better because it was a much better paying job and I was with MCI four and a half years. They transferred me, eight months before I quit, to Washington DC and I lived in Arlington, Virginia. And then they wanted to transfer me to New York and pay me the same thing they were paying in Washington DC, and I couldn't figure out how to afford living in New York on the same salary in Washington DC. Barry couldn't find a job in Washington, DC because he had come relocated temporarily- it's turned out to be, and so we both packed up our bags, put Grandma on top of that truck and drove to Hollywood- no, drove to Tulsa, and then we're out of work for most of the summer. But I got a pretty good severance package because they were doing a reorganization and so if you could not be in a place, fit you in the reorganization, they would give you a severance package. It was a couple weeks of pay for every year you worked for them, all your vacation and all your sick leave, and so that was pretty good. Barry Hensley: We'd moved to Tulsa and my mom was here and I had a lot of friends here. Terry didn't know anybody, so it was new to him. This is spring of 85. And so that summer we're trying to find jobs, and we ended up living at the Harvard Terrace Apartments at 26th and Harvard. I don't know how many people we know have gone through those apartments at some point in their lives. Toby Jenkins: They are great apartments. Terry Baxter: They still are. �13 Barry Hensley: It was 250 bucks a month. We didn't have jobs, they didn't care, as long as we could pay it. Terry Baxter: And then, of course, we signed the lease and I go: uh-oh, it says we can't have pets. She said, oh, don't worry about that, and she scratched it out because we had cats. Barry Hensley: So very nice place to live, but that got us through the summer. Dennis Neill: So how did you decide on Tulsa as opposed to your home state of Texas? Terry Baxter: Dallas had gotten really big. Fort Worth was beginning to become the right-wing bastion that it is today, and so I, just after having lived in Washington DC and spent my weekends on DuPont Circle, had the bookstore and stuff like that it was, I'd rather go to some place that hadn't grown up yet than go to a place that grew up wrong. So, and Barry's mother was here. Barry Hensley: She'd had some health issues, she'd had a heart attack. Terry Baxter: Oh, I guess I should go back. My parents had disowned me, so I guess I better go back and say how that came about. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, give us that real quick and then we'll get Barry's background. Terry Baxter: Yeah, because Barry can talk about Arlington and start again. But anyway, when I was working at the bank, I worked part-time at Sears in the credit office, and another worker at the credit office who— Mary Bishop-Baldwin: Is this while you were in college? Terry Baxter: Yeah. So I worked two jobs in college. And we were just talking to each other. And the sister of my brother's wife—so I guess whatever, she's not related to me—but my brother's wife's sister saw us talking together, and I guess he or I made some movement that made her think we were faggy. And so she told my brother's wife. And so one Saturday night when I got off work, I usually would go stop by my parents, because they had moved to Arlington at the time, sold their house in Fort Worth, moved to Arlington. And I'd go by their house just to visit for a little while, and then I would drive back to Dallas to go live where I live. I got there, and my brother and his wife were there, and there was a confrontation of— and to this day, I don't know what my sister-in-law thought she was going to get out of it, but she felt it necessary to tell my parents that I was gay, even though she didn't know for sure, but she made assumptions that happened to be correct. And it was not a good situation. I didn't speak to my father for ten years after that, because he wouldn't speak to me. My mother, I would send letters, and occasionally she would write a little note back, got your letter. But I never did understand that, but I couldn't drive home, because I was so shaken, because I didn't know what to say, because I didn't come out, because I knew it would bother them. But there was no reason to come out, because what I was doing �14 when I wasn't at home was not affecting them at all, but my sister-in-law had decided to make it affect them, which I thought was not in their best interest or mine. So luckily, Tim, who we'd been boyfriends and now we're just friends, was still at UTA, and I drove from their house to his place and stayed there overnight, because I just wasn't up to driving all the way back to Dallas with that going on. And so that's how I came out, or I was outed. In work situations, it wasn't officially don't ask, don't tell, but there was no reason to talk about it, because it was work. I think I didn't come out at the city until I was in, probably it was about four years before I retired, and we were in a meeting, and we were talking about something, and my boss said, well, what did you and your wife do? And I said, I don't have a wife, I'm gay. And that was the first time I said it out loud, because nobody else had ever asked. And she was like, you are? Oh, well, I don't know, it didn't mean anything, and she wasn't prejudiced about it or anything. But everybody else just knew, even though we never talked about it, because it was a state of being, not a thing. It was, you know, that's who I was. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: This was about four years before you retired, so that would have been about what year? Terry Baxter: About 2014. And every other place, I did my job better than most people do their jobs. I kept getting promotions. Every time I took a different job in the city, I had 12 different jobs, and that was to get more money, because if you work for the city, you don't get pay raises in place. You might get a 2% raise or 3% raise, but if you take a new position that's higher grade, you get a 10% raise. Barry Hensley: And you're still in the pension plan. Terry Baxter: And that's giving you more retirement and more of that. So I took advantage of the opportunities. I only used the opportunities once to escape, and I took a downgrade at that time to escape from a particular boss who was kind of like one of his later bosses. She loved you when you weren't working for her, but once you worked for her, she hated you if she hadn't hired you. And she tried to demote me, because I did not report into office when I was on jury duty. And I said, the city policy doesn't require you to report to work when you're on jury duty. And she says, well, that doesn't matter. I expect you to come to work. So I got with her boss and said, we can keep this in the family, and you can tell her that she doesn't have the right to do that, or I can go to HR and make this public to everybody that she's violating city policy by telling me I have to report to work when I'm on jury duty. And she said, that doesn’t matter, I expect you to come to work. I got with her boss and said, we can keep this in the family and you can tell her she doesn’t have the right, or I can go to HR and make this public that she is violating city policy by telling me I have to report to work when I am on jury duty. He took care of it. And so that was, but then I knew that I wasn't gonna, I was persona non grata with her from then forward. So I left the finance department and went to the fire department. �15 Toby Jenkins: What was your family's objection? I mean, were they embarrassed by it? Was it a religious objection over your sexuality? Was it political… Terry Baxter: I never got a good explanation from them. Dennis Neill: Was there a reconciliation over these years, the four players in that scene? Terry Baxter: When my dad got cancer and was dying, my mother decided that we should be able to, I should be able to see him before he died. Barry Hensley: It's 1990. Terry Baxter: And so I went back, spent some time at Thanksgiving, and spent some time at Christmas, and he died in January, 1st of January, not on the 1st, but in the 1st week of January. And that was the only, and he was already kind of not there because of the medication. And so it wasn't really a reconciliation. It was just a, you should not be able to see your father before he dies, and he should not be able to see you. SoBarry Hensley: We're friends with the brother now. Terry Baxter: Yeah, now. My mother, it tookBarry Hensley: His mother, okay. So she allowed him to come see his dad as he was dying in 1990. We had already been together ten years at that time. She did not allow me to come meet her or any of the family until 2002. We'd been together 22 years before she allowed me to meet the family. And I went downTerry Baxter: And she liked him better than me. Barry Hensley: And met the family, and they were lovely people, and this has been great ever since. So we've just wasted a lot of years. Toby Jenkins: This is profound, and I wanna make sure viewers capture that part of it. The alienation from the family, the family reject you, but yet apparently you stay somehow connected to them. Terry Baxter: Yeah, I would send birthday cards, but I always got them backwards until my dad finally said, I came first. Barry Hensley: Right. Terry Baxter: Cuz his birthday was September 16th, and hers was October 23rd. But I would always think it was her birthday on September 23rd, and his on October 16th. And so he said, in both cases, I came first, September, and 16 comes before 23. So then I finally knew how to figure out whose birthday card I was sending. But I tried to keep in touch. My sister and I kept in touch. My brother and I didn't for quite some years. But we do now. Toby Jenkins: Let's find out about Barry. Tell us a little bit about your childhood, your family background. Because if I understand, you were a Tulsan. �16 Barry Hensley: I was. My grandfather, my mother's father, left the extreme poverty of southern Missouri in 1915. Excuse me, 1910, and he was 15 years old. And he was hitchhiking to California, because that's where you went back then. And he made it to Yale, Oklahoma, ran out of money, turned around and came back to Tulsa, because that was the closest big city. And he stayed there the rest of his life. He went to World War I, came back and started the Moulder, Oldham Janitorial Supply Company, which was at 219 North Denver, which is where the jail is now, the county jail. And he had that business until he died in 1975. So my mom was born in 1930, and she and my dad got together. My grandmother was a very hard-nosed woman. She was a difficult mother, apparently, I have heard from her kids and from other family members back in the 40s into the 50s. She was a really difficult personality. By the time I came along in the 60s, she had mellowed a lot. She was a big supporter of mine, and I appreciated her a lot. But I knew I didn't want to do anything to cross her. So when I was a teenager, if someone suggested that you do some stupid teenage thing to get in trouble or whatever, I'd say, I can't do that. Grandmother will kill me. So that's how I stayed out of trouble, was having the invisible grandmother looking over my shoulder at that moment. But yeah, my parents bought the house we're living in now over near 21st and Lewis. It's not the big fancy houses on the south side. It's the little bungalows on the north side, although we did a big renovation on it when my mom died. But they bought that house in 1951, and that's where I grew up, went to Barnard Elementary, my beloved Barnard Elementary. My parents divorced. I was very young. Dad had already remarried and moved to Dallas by the time I was five, so I don't remember him at the house at all, and he had distanced himself quite a bit. Nice guy, and he would come up and see me and my brother. My brother was developmentally disabled, just the two of us, and Dad would come up on the holidays, you know, when you're in elementary school, Thanksgiving and whatever, the 4th of July. And we'd go down and spend a week or two in Dallas every summer with him and his new family. Toby Jenkins: Did he still continue to financially support the family? Barry Hensley: Not, no. Nope, nope, nope. He was supposed to. He did his own, well, he had his own family, and his new wife, bless her heart, she was a, he had a tiger by the tail there, so he had to provide for the two new boys that he ended up with when he married her. But yeah, I grew up at Barnard, and after Dad left, Mom, it's just Mom and I, because David, my brother, was off at school, as you called it back then, he was at school. He went to Hissom and some other places. But Mom had some issues. She had some demons that she had a hard time overcoming, and it's one of those things where the kid becomes the parent, you know, elementary school sort of thing. So there were, I didn't choke up here, because Barnard, that was my refuge. That was the place that I got away from the real world, and I loved it so much. And when it burned down, that just about killed me, even though it had been decades, you know, decades �17 after that. But it was a really good experience working at working, thank you, working at, or going to school at Barnard. Lifelong friends I still have. And then junior high school, I went to Holland Hall. The family decided that was a spot. My uncles had gone to Cascia, and Holland Hall seemed like a good alternative, and so I went. It was at the old campus at 26th and Birmingham. Toby Jenkins: Were you all Episcopal or… Barry Hensley: No, we were Presbyterian. Yeah, so grew up in the First Presbyterian Church downtown. I was in the choir, children's choir, and we participated. Mom distanced herself from it. She didn't really like it that much anymore, even though that's where she had grown up as well. My grandparents were already there when they built that building in 1925. So their names are all over the place down there. But grandmother still liked to go, and after granddaddy died, and I got my driver's license, I would take her down on Sunday mornings, and Dr. Wiseman was there then, and she liked him a lot. Toby Jenkins: Legend. Barry Hensley: Yeah, and but I think I was 17 or 18, and it wasn't Dr. Wiseman, it was a guest minister that week, and who went on this anti-gay tirade. Absolute tirade, and I'm sitting there looking at this. I'm thinking, this guy is nuts. This is crazy. The stuff he's saying is just not even true. Toby Jenkins: You were in high school? Barry Hensley: I was in high school. I was probably 17, and I probably hadn't really come to grips with my sexuality necessarily. You did what you did back then. You know, I'd go take a girl to the you know, dance and to the sweetheart ball or whatever, and those lovely young ladies, I'm still friends with every one of them. They are wonderful people. But yeah, so after that... Terry Baxter: And now they know why he didn't go any farther than just taking them to the dance. Barry Hensley: I was safe. Yeah, their mothers liked me. But after that event at First Prez, I still took Grandmother because she wanted to go, but I knew that I was not going to end up at First Prez, and Mom had already left. She had been exploring some other places, and so we'll talk about College Hill here in a minute. Dennis Neill: So Barry, how did your mother provide for you all? Barry Hensley: It was a difficult situation. She... My grandparents basically provided for us. Mom was... She was capable of holding a job, but as I say, these demons would get involved, and it made it really difficult. She worked for the Tulsa County Health Department for several years, off and on, sometimes part-time, that sort of thing. So I think the finances... You don't know it when you're that age, you know, but yeah, I mean, we got food on the table, but I had an entire... I had an entire group that helped raise �18 me. The two little ladies across the street, they were sisters, elderly sisters, and I would go spend time over there. I'd sleep over there. They'd feed me. They'd take me on trips with them. You know, the neighborhood and the family would step in when Mom wasn't able to do that, and I am forever grateful for all those folks coming together when I needed them. But it was funny. I keep thinking back now. I never got the talk from either of my parents, you know. You're just supposed to find out how the world works sexually on your own. Terry Baxter: Except his mother working in the health department. Barry Hensley: That's what I'm going to tell you about. So she does these county health fairs around Tulsa County. And so my education was all the stuff she left in the back of the car, which were brochures and fake breasts where you determine where the lumps are and all of those sorts of things. Because that's what she was doing, educating young women was her primary job. So I had all of this information in the backseat of the car. That was the talk. Yes, it was so funny. Toby Jenkins: You had more than most anybody else. Barry Hensley: Yeah, it didn't occur to me to go to the library. I should have done that. But I was at Holland Hall for three years, and then one year at the new campus. The new campus, been there 50 years now out on Yale at 81st Street. Good friends there, lifelong friends I made there. And then I went to Edison for 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. And we were just across… We were north of 21st Street, so we weren't in the Edison district. We were in the Central District. And at that time, Central had just moved from the building downtown where PSO is now, way the heck out, south of Gilcrease, their new campus out there. And mom said, I am not taking you all the way out there. Terry Baxter: Not that she took you to Edison. Barry Hensley: And Rogers was so close, it made no sense the way the lines were drawn. And Edison was literally two miles south of us. Terry Baxter: And it was because the railroad track that goes down to Broken Arrow Expressway, before the highway was there, was the dividing line, because kids could not cross railroad tracks to go to school. Terry Baxter: Yeah, my grandmother lived at 26th and Columbia. And so we used her address. And nobody was any wiser. Dennis Neill: And I think one of your good friends growing up was Scott Goodpaster. Barry Hensley: Indeed. Dennis Neill: Can you talk when you first met Scott? Barry Hensley: Yes. So at Edison, again, a bunch of lifelong friends, wonderful people. Toby Jenkins: Let me ask this real quick. So what year did you graduate? �19 Barry Hensley: 78. Toby Jenkins: 78. And how many were in your graduating class at Edison? Barry Hensley: Maybe 700, maybe. Terry Baxter: I can't remember exactly. Toby Jenkins: Still a big school. Barry Hensley: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: OK, now talk about your high school friends. Barry Hensley: So yeah, so several high school friends. Scott was a good one. I met him pretty quickly. We were 16. He just passed away. He turned into the most incredible artist and most incredible landscaper, gardener, just unbelievable. His yard is pristine. And when he died back in May, his family was so generous. None of them lived here. But they all came in to do all these arrangements. And they allowed me to take some plants out of his yard, which just really, so I sit in the backyard now. We have plants from friends, neighbors, co-workers, family, all of these plants, perennials. So I see them every year. And I sit out there in the evenings with an adult beverage and just toast the world. Terry Baxter: That was, we learned to do that during COVID and ever since then… Barry Hensley: We still do it. Yeah, I love it so much. But Scott was a golden boy. He was a handsome guy. Everybody wanted to be his friend. And he was a very private, very private guy. His best friend, who then became one of my best friends, was Stephen Breckenridge. Stephen was the great grandson of Waite and Genevieve Phillips, of Philbrook fame. And Stephen was a wild child. He was funny, everybody loved him. And that's part of it. He managed to get through school, I think, without being bullied. And the same way I did. I never got bullied. Because I think we subconsciously at that time realized that if you could make the bullies laugh, they wouldn't beat you up. So you did, you came up with humor, was the way that you diffused those situations. And Stephen was a prime example of that. And he was a hoot. So he was in theater, so I was in the theater stuff, and enjoyed that a lot. Toby Jenkins: So Steve Breckenridge, Scott Goodpaster, you’re all at Edison. Was anybody telling anybody that they had same-sex attraction? Barry Hensley: Yeah, yeah, there was a group of us, theater guys, you know. We... You know, you started experimenting when you were 16, 17 years old. Toby Jenkins: So, you know, there were high school kids at Edison that you were friends, lifelong friends, and you had figured it out by then. Barry Hensley: I had. �20 Toby Jenkins: And they had also. Terry Baxter: Yeah, I think so. Terry Baxter: Especially Stephen . Barry Hensley: Yeah, especially Stephen. I had never come out to my parents. I never did that. We never had a discussion about it. I lived my life the way I wanted to. I took the girls, as I said, to the dances and whatnot. Terry Baxter: But they did know because when we moved into our first house, his dad and I were working on basically stuff you do when you want to. Barry Hensley: Carpentry. Terry Baxter: Carpentry stuff. Toby Jenkins: That's right, because your father lived in Texas. Terry Baxter: Yeah, they didn't know. And he would come up here and he helped us. And we were planing the bottom of a door. And Gene just said, I'm glad Barry ended up with somebody like you. And I guess I took it meaning, because I knew how to do that woodwork and all that kind of stuff. But he also said, ended up with someone like you, which made it obvious that he wasn't confused about what our relationship was. Barry Hensley: He was a great guy. He just wanted me to be happy. I appreciated that. Toby Jenkins: So you were in high school. You've got this circle of friends. You were in theater and. . . Bary Hensley: Yeah, pretty much. I had been a soccer kid at Holland Hall, but didn't really do much in the gym at Edison. Graduated in 78. And Scott and another friend, Ben Crockett, and I decided to go to Oklahoma State University that fall. It would be the fall of 78. So we went. And you'll find this funny about Scott. So Ben and I got a dorm room together in Parker dorm. Scott pledged a fraternity. And we hadn't been at school more than probably a week or ten days. And one night after midnight, our dorm room door, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And it's Scott. And we open the door and he says, I am not going through this initiation ceremony. And we said, good for you. It's like we could have told you that was going to happen. But anyway, he slept on the floor that night and managed to get a room in our dorm, the other end of the hall. And these are the old-fashioned dorms where you have one central bathroom, you know, with the shower stalls and everything. And so Ben and I would get your towel and walk down the hall in your underwear with your bar of soap. And that was about it. And there comes Scott, who has his long robe on and his slippers. And he has a satchel over his shoulder going to the shower. Terry Baxter: Full of products. �21 Barry Hensley: Full of moisturizers and all of those sorts of things, cleansers of one kind or another. He was so careful about his skin. So it was a lot of fun. Toby Jenkins: He probably had a subscription to GQ magazine. Barry Hensley: Oh, yes, of course. No, he turned me on to GQ magazine back in the 70s. You bet. So we're at Oklahoma State University. And I decided it wasn't a very good fit, although it was kind of funny. I have a picture of it. So this was the era of Farrah Fawcett. You know, that poster of her and Linda Carter as Wonder Woman. And all the guys had all that up in their dorms. And I have this huge poster of Judy Garland at the Palace in 1967 on my wall at OSU. But again, I didn't get bullied about it. They were just completely confused, having no idea what it was. Terry Baxter: Who is that old lady on your wall? Barry Hensley: Yeah, that was pretty fun. So I decided that that wasn't where I wanted to stay the rest of my college career and that I hadn't really known my dad very well. And so he was in Dallas, and I decided to go to—I went down to several schools down there. I could use in-state tuition since he lived in Dallas and started going to UTA. UTA is a commuter school, so the weekends are pretty dull. People live everywhere else except for Terry and a handful of people in the dorms. It's empty on the weekends. So I'd go back to my dad's house on the weekends. My stepmother, bless her heart, would do my laundry. And so I would get to know them a little better. And this would be the fall of 79 I started at UTA. And quickly discovered, as you do when you're 19, 20, 21, I think it was in 1981, I would have been 21, and there was a group of us. We weren't best friends, but we kind of recognized each other as gay. And UT Austin, there had been some stuff coming out about their sort of gay-straight alliance, whatever it was called at that time, and we didn't have one. And we needed our little group. We got together at the one bar that Terry was talking about in Arlington to strategize about how we approach the administration about recognizing our organization. We went through all of this stuff and had to go through all of these, you know, bylaws and all these things to make sure that we fit the criteria for what they needed so they couldn't say no. And we did. We went through that process and I remember, I'll remember to this day, sitting outside the door. Only one of us could go in to make the presentation to the, whatever, the president and the board or whatever it was called. And the rest of us were sitting out in the lobby area just, you know, sweating like crazy. And he came out with a great big smile on his face. And that was the first recognition of a gay group at the University of Texas at Arlington. So that was very exciting. Dennis Neill: Do you recall your acronym? Barry Hensley: I don't. I don't know what it was called. It wasn't the Gay-Straight Alliance. We had a different name for it. But, it didn't do a lot. We didn't do a lot of, I mean, we'd have like a booth maybe, you know, at events and such. Terry Baxter: Registration. �22 Barry Hensley: Right. But I don't remember being really active that much. And I wasn't living on campus. Dennis Neill: When I interviewed Tom Neal, he talked about being active and helping form a group at OU. Was he also involved in this effort? Barry Hensley: No, I don't think so. I don't remember him being involved in that. No, I don't remember that. Terry Baxter: He was in graduate school and so he was not involved with the same people that Barry was. Barry Hensley: But when I was first at UTA, I lived just off campus in a little apartment. And that's when we were forming this organization. By the time I was living with Tom and Laurie and Al in Dallas, it was already in existence by the time we were commuting every day. So I got my degree in communications in 1983. And as Terry said, you know, went to work for MCI. And we came back to Tulsa in the summer of 85. And Terry had an interview at the city of Tulsa. And at that time, the city offices were [where the] the Aloft Hotel [is now]. Toby Jenkins: So why did you come back to Tulsa? Barry Hensley: Well, the cost of living is very inexpensive. And my mom was having some health issues. So we didn't live with her in the summer of 85. Terry Baxter: And we didn't want to go back to Texas. Barry Hensley: Yeah. And I still hadn't met Terry's family or anything. So there wasn't too much reason for me to be involved there. But anyway, so Terry has an interview at the city of Tulsa. There's a parking lot between that building and the Central Library. And so I'm sitting in the car. Toby Jenkins: Because in those days, City Hall was... Barry Hensley: Where the Aloft is now. Toby Jenkins: Civic Center. Yeah. Barry Hensley: 100 Civic Center. Right. The library is 300, I think, Civic Center. 400. 400 Civic Center. So I'm sitting there in the parking lot. And I'm staring at the Aloft Hotel, the city of Tulsa. And while Terry's having his interview, I didn't have a job either. And back then, if you needed a job, you had a trunk full of resumes. You know? And if something looked interesting or you saw a sign somewhere, you'd go in and talk to them. So I popped the trunk and I got a resume. And I went up to the fourth floor. That's where the business office was then. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: At the library? Barry Hensley: At the library. I didn't have any library experience. You know, I'm 25 years old. And the personnel director happened to be standing there at the little desk, talking to some of the staff. And she introduced herself and said, Well, I have a few minutes. Come on in. �23 And so I did. And she is still alive. She's having her 90th birthday next month. Lovely lady. And my life would not have been the same without her. Because she got me an interview, first of all, with Wayne Hardy in the Media Center. Which is where I really wanted to work. Because it was not books. It was movies and music and all the stuff that I really loved. I was into all the golden era of Hollywood and all of those things. And Wayne, very unwisely, turned me down. Because there was a former staff member that applied also, so he hired her back. I didn't understand it. But anyway, the personnel director then sent me out to Hardesty, which was then by Woodland Hills Mall, across from Dillard's at Woodland Hills Mall. And I got the job out there without one day of library experience. I started as a library associate. Terry Baxter: And we were in Eureka Springs when you got called saying you needed to come to work on Monday. Barry Hensley: I needed to come to work on Monday. So it was a very exciting time. I started in September of 85. Terry started in October of 85 at the City. He got a job there. Terry Baxter: They didn't want to hire me at first because I was overqualified. Toby Jenkins: So, City employee, and it was County-City… Barry Hensley: City-County employee, yeah. But we both are part of the same retirement system. Toby Jenkins: So you're part of the pension, the City, the County pension, or the City? Terry Baxter: It's the City one. Barry Hensley: The library had to make a choice decades ago and they went with the City. Terry Baxter: The City and the County formed them as a joint thing with their own board and all that kind of stuff. They kind of chose the parts that they wanted from each organization. Toby Jenkins: So they have the health department, some other things. Barry Hensley: I wanted to go back to something real quick because I thought it was, I thought it was interesting. You asked to put, have notes in, so I do. I realized after we moved back to Tulsa that my mom's, many of my mom's friends, I had known all my life, I had seen them in and out and, you know, they were just her friends from high school, mainly, and a couple of those guys were gay. And I, we sort of started realizing that and I thought it was so interesting that she, I think it was a don't ask, don't tell sort of situation, you know, back then. But these guys would step up and they would, you know, escort mom or her other friends to events or whatever. So, you know, I think that, I think it was a win-win situation. But I remember one of them, John, John Raveill, he was a Prime Timer here and he was, he and mom were good buddies from Central High School on. �24 And he told me one time, I just thought this was interesting, back in the 60s, back in the good old days, they would go, he and his buddies would go to, I think it was called the Taj Mahal, down on 7th Street, across from the Holiday Inn. And when they would get done, you know, middle of the night, late, the police would be waiting for them. And I'm so grateful for the police officers now. I always thank them at the pride parades and whatever else because they're so supportive and so helpful. Not so back then. So John said what would happen is his buddy would go through the door, the police officer would intercept him and order him to walk across the street. And so he would walk across the street and be promptly arrested for jaywalking. And John said, aha. So when the officer ordered him to do that, he walked to the corner to walk across with the light, where he was promptly arrested for disobeying an officer. So that was the environment that those guys had to live in. Toby Jenkins: Police harassment. Barry Hensley: It was harassment. Very basic harassment. So I was so grateful that, you know, things have changed through the years, yes. So are you ready for the library? Dennis Neill: Well, when you first came here in 1985, did you get connected with the gay community at that time? Or were you pretty isolated from the community? Barry Hensley: My old friends were the gay community for us. And we weren't bar guys. We didn't go out and do that. Terry Baxter: We would have friends over to Barry's mother's pool. And she would have all her friends and we'd have our friends. So there'd be 40 people at the pool every Sunday. Half of her friends, and almost all of our friends, were gay. But it was an interesting mixture of people. Dennis Neill: So TOHR wasn't part of your early introduction to the community, Barry Hensley: Not at that time. Terry Baxter: Only ancillarily, you know, like Tom's bookstore, we'd go there every once in a while to get stuff. But it was funny. Toby Jenkins: Did you attend any of the meetings at the library? Barry Hensley: I don't remember doing that, no. Terry Baxter: We went to the Red Ribbon Gala several times, until it became more of a social outlet instead of a fundraiser cause. Toby Jenkins: Did you ever attend the Pride Picnics? Terry Baxter: Yeah. Barry Hensley: Oh, yeah. Terry Baxter: He has a story about that. �25 Barry Hensley: Well, so I'm at the library in 1994, 25th anniversary of the Stonewall situation. And the library had never had a display of Pride anything. Yeah, I don't know if you can see that or not. But that's the first Pride display at the library in 1994. I had gone to the Central Library Manager at that time, my boss, John. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: Did you still work at Hardesty? Barry Hensley: I had moved down to Central. I had been an interlibrary loan at Central in the late 80s and then moved to the Circulation Department. I managed the Circulation Department when this transpired, and then I went out to what was then West Regional and became the Zarrow Regional Library at 51st and Union. I was there for 21 years, and then I became a Regional Director and moved back to Central and was in charge of half the branches, the North and West branches. I went to John and asked if I could do this display, and he said, sure. So I commandeered this display unit, which was outside of... Toby Jenkins: Were you out to John? Did John know you were gay? Barry Hensley: Oh, we never talked about it, but sure. And the library staff were always, I mean, Terry was just with me. There was never any discussion. The library was a very supportive environment without necessarily verbalizing it, I think, at that time. And so I went around and found these books. This was in the South Foyer outside of Aaronson Auditorium, one of the old 1960s, the original display units. And at that time, Bruce Bower's A Place at the Table had been a big book. There were several things, and I thought that the 25th anniversary of Stonewall was a good opportunity to do a display. And at that time, analog…to get magazine articles that I wanted to put in the display on the other side, I had to go to the periodicals department. I got big binders of books, of magazines. You find Life magazine, you find Newsweek, you find the articles, you take them to the photocopier. You cut and you paste, and very analog. But I got the information out there, man. And so this display went up, and I hadn't heard any response about it, which I thought was fine. And then John caught me on the elevator a couple weeks after it went up. And he said, oh, I got a comment about your display. And I was kind of steeling myself for whatever that comment would be. He said, yeah, this guy pulled me over, and he said, oh man, thank you so much for putting up that Stonewall Jackson display. And I was thinking, Stonewall Jackson, 25 years ago? Is it really? Terry Baxter: He obviously didn't read what was in there. Barry Hensley: But I'll take it. Terry Baxter: He just saw the word Stonewall. Barry Hensley: So anyway, that was the first one. Toby Jenkins: And no protest? You had nobody? Barry Hensley: No, no. Nobody said a word. �26 Toby Jenkins: That is astonishing. Barry Hensley: Nobody said a word. Toby Jenkins: Maybe everybody thought it was Stonewall Jackson. Barry Hensley: Yeah, maybe. Dennis Neill: Did it make the media? Barry Hensley: Not that I recall. Terry Baxter: I think Tom said something in TFN about it. Barry Hensley: So yeah, so what happened after that was, I was on a roll. So Tom Neal had started the Tulsa Family News. I got approval to have a library column every month in the Tulsa Family News, the new books, the new, you know, whatever we were getting relating to the community. So I did that for as long as he had TFN. And there was some, there was a little kerfuffle about the distribution, because I don't think the library administration at that time wanted to go overboard on all of this. And so they found a loophole in the laws, the library rules and regulations, that we could not distribute to the branches and whatnot…You know, they have, in the lobbies, there are display units that have magazines and newspapers and that sort of thing. If it wasn't a Tulsa-oriented piece of publication. And at that time, Tom was getting blackballed by the local publishers in the city of Tulsa. He had to go to the city of Claremore, where he found someone to publish his newspaper. He would go up there and get it and drive it back and distribute it wherever he wanted to. And that was the loophole. It was in Claremore, it was published in Claremore, not in Tulsa. So the library decided they didn't need to do that. Well, after quite a bit of, if you know Tom, he doesn't take that sort of thing well. So eventually it rectified itself and we were able to distribute it to all the locations in Tulsa County, all the libraries in Tulsa County, which was very cool. But that also was the beginning of having a booth, a library booth, at the Pride events. So we had a booth at Mohawk, we had a booth at Owen Park. Terry Baxter: We had a picnic table. Barry Hensley: That's right, a picnic table with a rainbow flag that we bought across it, that's right, and a homemade sign. And a few books. Terry Baxter: And this table was slowly sinking into the mud. Barry Hensley: Yeah, at Mohawk Park, that was a soggy one, yes, I remember that. And at Owen Park, I remember, I know we were there at the summer of 1996, because over the intercom, they would play music and Ella Fitzgerald came on, and that's when we realized that Ella Fitzgerald had died that day. So I can't complain exactly. She was one of my heroes. Oh my god, it was so exciting when we were living in Dallas. Terry was my sugar daddy, sort of, you know. �27 He had a job at the time. I was a starving college student, and the Fairmont Hotel had a place called the Venetian Room. It was a showroom. For 25 bucks, you could have dinner and a show. So he started taking me down there and I realized I had this record collection of great American songbook stuff and jazz, a lot, still have it, and I realized that I could take my album down there and get these performers to autograph them because they didn't have a green room at the showroom. The performer stayed in the hotel so they would come down and go back up the elevator, which was in the middle of the lobby, and that gave me an opportunity to intercept them before or after the show, and they were all very gracious, and I got to meet and get autographs from Carmen McRae and Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald and Cab Calloway and, oh my gosh, it was so exciting, Mel Torme and George Shearing and Keeley Smith and so much - Peggy Lee. You all may remember Peter Athens. He was a good friend of ours and from Holland Hall, before I met him, and he was down there for our, when we went to see Peggy Lee, and so I hightailed it after the show to get Miss Lee to autograph my album. She was very gracious, and I came back and Peter was so funny. He said, I can't believe you stalked Peggy Lee. I said, I did not stalk Peggy Lee. I escorted Miss Lee to the elevator and managed to get an autograph while I was there, but those performers, you know, these huge names, they didn't have any entourage. There were no security guards or anything, and when we saw Torme, Mel Torme, there were three of us. There was Terry and his old friend Tim, our friend Tim, and me, and another friend named Barry, and we were on the front row, the four of us, and Shearing was playing the piano. He was playing a solo. Torme was standing on the stage, just kind of acknowledging the audience sort of thing, and he looked down at us, looked at the four of us, and he said, what, no dames? You got us there, Mel, you know. I thought if I had gotten my wits together, I would have said, no, they like Jack Jones, because he and Jack Jones were big rivals, you know, but anyway, sorry, that was a little diversion, but so when Ella Fitzgerald died, and we found out about it at the Pride picnic, it just broke my heart, but in fact, when the PAC opened, I took one of the girls from high school to see Ella Fitzgerald as the opening of the PAC, and we're still friends today. She and Terry sing together in the Tulsa Chorale, so it's... Toby Jenkins: So, just curious, the library is at the Pride picnics, you've done this, were y'all, was the senior management ever telling you that they were getting complaints, or people protesting? Barry Hensley: No, and if there were, they at that time were very good about saying just what we discussed earlier, which is, you know, the library is there for everybody. Dennis Neill: When did PFLAG or TOHR become involved in helping you with the displays? �28 Barry Hensley: That must have been after I left the Central Library, which would be in 95, so... Toby Jenkins: Because I was always led to believe it was Mary Waidner and Nancy McDonald who got the... Barry Hensley: Well, Mary was certainly there, she was certainly involved, she worked there, yeah. Yeah, but it was a fun time, an exciting time, you know, to be there, and now, you know, every Pride parade, there's the bookmobile, you know, we have to go say hi. Dennis Neill: You really laid the basis for that outreach by the public libraries into our community? Barry Hensley: Yeah, and we never had any problem getting staff to participate. It was like, oh sure, I'll come down and do that. Toby Jenkins: But you included the books in Tom's publication, making sure the community... Barry Hensley: Yep, whatever new materials came out. Toby Jenkins: ...we have his collection domain, Tom's… Dennis Neill: Yes, all of those newspapers are digitized and available to the public. Barry Hensley: Great, that's great. Well, my columns are in there every month. Toby Jenkins: So we can go back and look at his… Dennis Neill: And we have a video from when one of the news stations covered the library display, and it featured, I think, maybe Nancy in that discussion or somebody, so it was Channel 2, Channel 6, but you laid the basis for all of that opportunity to expose people to... Toby Jenkins: Thank you. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: Thank you. Barry Hensley: It was very exciting. Terry Baxter: And that John, straight man who's in the library, says, oh yeah, go ahead. And that was kind of good, too. Toby Jenkins: I'm curious, because, I mean, it became a lifeline. It became my salvation, my deliverance to an authentic life. Why were there so many books in the library around these issues? Were they asking you to research this and find the books you all needed in your collection? How was that happening? Barry Hensley: Well, I'm sure Mary was a big part of that. I was not at that time. I wasn't a part of collection building in any way. I mean, anybody could recommend. You know that we get something. But there are national booksellers, you know, who contract with libraries and bookstores to get the newest releases and whatever, and the library will �29 put their parameters in. We would like to do releases on these topics and this and this and this, and it was kind of becoming, you know, in the mid-90s. It was kind of becoming a thing that was being discussed and so the library wanted to be on top of it and, as I say, I'm sure Mary was a part of that, making sure that because she was in… Dennis Neill: Well, and part of it, you might recall, is that Mary and Nancy worked together to raise money that we would contribute to help buy those books. Barry Hensley: Yeah, that's so cool. Dennis Neill: So we did that, both through PFLAG and through TOHR, and there used to be a lot of the library plates and we would give them the books they noted it was donated. Toby Jenkins: So, was it wish lists? They would publish a wish list and then y'all would Dennis Neill: It was all very informal, but Mary and Nancy said we need to acquire these books, let's raise the money and we'd help the library buy those books. So we'd send out funds, probably to the library trust and they'd use those funds then to purchase those books. And then there were plates they would put in the front inside cover donated by... Toby Jenkins: Okay, I just want to take this opportunity to tell you connect some dots, Scott Goodpaster. He and I had ended up in a confirmation class at St Jerome's and he was very well read and he knew I was kind of newly out and he said, well, you need to read the Gay classics. And so he gave me a whole list of books that I needed to read that were at the Tulsa Library, like Giovanni's Room. You know several of those books. Barry Hensley: That's so cool. Toby Jenkins: and I would come out with a stack of books like that. Barry Hensley: That's the idea. Toby Jenkins: He had a list of movies, so I'd check the movies out. That's great, all right, anything. So this is. It's getting very lengthy, but it's just so good we're finding out anything else you want to tell us. Barry Hensley: I want to talk about when Terry started going to College Hill Presbyterian Church over here by TU. So he was working in the Finance and Revenue Department with Gary Watts and Gary said: this is 1994, same year, very exciting year. And Gary said: you sing, don't you Terry? He said well, yeah, he hadn't sung really since he'd been back here in Tulsa, but he'd grown up singing and been in the Turtle Creek Chorale. And Gary said: well, my little church needs some tenors if you'd like to come audition us. Terry Baxter: Well, that's not how he said it. He said: if you'd like to come visit and see. And so I actually went to audition. I wanted to hear if it was a real organ- and it was a real pipe organ. And I wanted to hear what the choir sounded like, because I didn't want to lend my voice to a ragtag. And it was a small choir but they sounded great- still do, �30 amazingly- and so I started going there to sing- not anything to do with it being church, really, but to have a singing outlet to go to. They just so happened to have a party two weeks after I first went there, and so the choir director invited me to the party, and it later came out at the party because she and I went into my car and were talking that she was gay and had a girlfriend. But the girlfriend was married and it was just one of those type things. But after they became girlfriend and girlfriend, the lady and her husband stayed at College Hill. Nobody chose sides, it was just: oh well, I guess she finally found herself. But everybody was that way and I felt for the first time in my life that it was a group of people who didn't think you had to reconcile being gay with being a Christian. Toby Jenkins: And who would have been the minister at the time was Radford in there. Terry Baxter: Radford was the next called minister. David Caldwell was there. It was his last day as minister when I went that first time and then we had the interim pastor and that's the one that asked me: how do I reconcile being gay with being a Christian? And I told him that you don't need to reconcile. That, which I think was an odd answer, that he did not expect, that there's no reconciliation necessary. Toby Jenkins: Very profound. Barry Hensley: So Terry had suggested that I start coming to College Hill. I didn't want to do that. From my experience at First Pres- I didn't have an organized religion at all. But I went and the people were so genuine and so open, friendly and outgoing and welcoming. I thought, is this a cult or something, because I'm not used to this sort of organized religion at all. And turns out they are just great, great people. And it also turned out that there were several refugees from First Prez and my mom's generation. She had, I think there were three ladies that she had known back in the early 50s. They were all in the mariners class together when they were all newlyweds back in the Eisenhower era, and so she started coming as well. So it became this really nice, nice place that is wonderful… Terry Baxter: And your brother David started coming. Barry Hensley: David started coming. It was just wonderful… It's a wonderful place and you're able to have a traditional sort of service experience that I was used to from when I've been a kid, but built around this welcoming environment, it's just a really neat little place. So I want to get College Hill a shout out. Mary Bishop-Baldwin. And having an openly gay minister. Barry Hensley: That's correct. Terry Baxter: Yeah, we actually suggested to him that he talked to you guys. Yeah, let's hope he does. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, he just retired. Todd Freeman. Yeah, yeah, he's gonna stay in Tulsa. �31 Barry Hensley: Yes, for at least for right now. Toby Jenkins: He's traveling all over the world. So you would have been there, because I think, wasn't it under Radford that they became a More Light congregation. [More Light is a network of Presbyterian churches which are open and affirming for the LGBTQ+ community.] Barry Hensley: Yeah, Terry was a part of that. Toby Jenkins: Talk about that a little bit. Terry Baxter: Well, there was a discerning process going on and and I was not on session, which is a governing body in the Presbyterian Church at that time, but a friend of ours, Margaret Watson, Margaret Duncan at the time was- was on it and they, they just decided that the Presbyterian Church in Tulsa needed to have an open and outward exposure. To contrast, Kirk of the Hills and First Prez. First Prez has always been kind of the don't ask, don't tell type. Seems like it's gotten worse since they got their new pastor. But Kirk of the Hills, you know, when the Presbyterian Church ultimately decided that it was okay to ordain gays and and that kind of stuff, Kirk of the Hills just [left]. Not to speak bad of the Presbyterian Church. But the Presbytery gave them a good deal when they let them keep their building. Toby Jenkins: Well, it required a lawsuit… Terry Baxter: But the church actually won and they still turned around and allowed them to purchase it for a million dollars. Even though the church won the lawsuit and could have retained the property, as is in the Presbyterian bylaws, the presbytery was nice and said: give us a million dollars, we'll let you go and be whoever you want to be, and- and that's probably the Christian thing to do- but for people who are hoping to make strides in improving the acceptability of gay people. You don't want people like that to win, you want them to suffer a loss. Who knows, the church ultimately won because they're not part of it and so those people can be away. Then we called Radford Rader, who, initially, was instrumental in pushing for the More Light stuff to continue, even though he had done his associate work and youth pastor work at Kirk of the Hills, which is kind of interesting. So even Radford's position had moved and grown and he became instrumental as a straight man, pushing for college to become More Light and accepting. Actually, when we got married, we asked him if he would do the service and he said: well, you know, the denomination is still officially not agreeing with the right of gay people to have a commitment ceremony, and, and I could lose my retirement pension fund if I did that, even though it was in Canada. Barry Hensley: That was in 2005. We decided to go to Canada. We never dreamed it would happen here, but thanks to you [Mary Bishop-Baldwin], other people like you. So we ended up married in Canada, yes, but so he and we became More Light. The Session which is a, I said before the governing body. They've always been. When prohibition came, they were always not for prohibition. What was the next? �32 Terry Baxter: They were very anxious for women to be able to vote. In World War II they would, the members of the church, would take in the international Asian students who were being harassed at TU because of their heritage, and the Japanese. Barry Hensley: If you looked Asian. Terry Baxter: Yeah, if your eyes were not like our eyes. Barry Hensley: And they were behind, they were the first, my understanding is, they were the first church in Tulsa to have an integrated membership, that there was a black family that moved in in the 1950s that became members. And then the gay rights stuff, and they've just been on the right side of every one of these topics. It's a wonderful, wonderful place. Toby Jenkins: So after Radford they called Todd Freeman, and he has been there... Barry Hensley: He was there 18 years. Terry Baxter: Yeah, Todd, I was, I was on session and actually on the pastor nominating committee when we called Todd. It was kind of interesting story because we just could not find the right person, could not find the right person. And Todd hadn't even applied for the job. He was in Dallas at a church there. And we reposted it in all the Presbyterian outlets, I guess you call it, so that in order to get new applicants, because we just had not been able to find anybody that fit what we thought we needed. And a friend of his convinced him, because they saw that new posting, said this church is still looking for somebody, maybe you should apply for it. And he did, and he ended up being the successful applicant. I mean, the first time he came here, interestingly enough, at one of those More Light groupings where his church and we were also at one campsite together. Some of us had met him, didn't remember we had met him until we saw him. But he could preach a sermon, he could minister to people, and he wasn't stupid. He was intelligent. And so he just fit perfectly. And the average length of time for a pastor in a Presbyterian church is eight years, and he was there 18 years. So it was a good fit. It's gonna be hard to find somebody who… Barry Hensley: And unlike so many small churches, the membership is growing. It's not declining, and so many... Terry Baxter: And it's not going up by getting refugees from other churches, it's young. Toby Jenkins: You have several prominent community leaders, and I will say on record that that was the beautiful thing about Reverend Todd Freeman. He was such a good community collaborator. He worked with the interfaith community, he worked on social issues, he worked on issues that would expand services to marginalized communities. He was a very good fit for Tulsa, what we needed at that time. Terry Baxter: And if he does what he says he's gonna do, he's gonna continue doing that. He wants to do more of that, and being a pastor of a church sometimes gets in the way of doing more of that. So he just, I think he also wanted to retire so he wouldn't �33 have to be preaching all our funerals. Because so many of his friends are his age level or more. Toby Jenkins: I'll say this one more about him, then I have some questions about Terry at the City. During the marriage equality fight, which was a 10-year long journey from the time that Mary and Sharon and Gay and Sue filed their lawsuit, we were trying to educate our community and help people understand it better because there was such a religious objection component to it. Reverend Freeman and dozens of other clergy persons were so vital to us because we were able to get them to make statements, write articles that we could then get media publications so that they knew that it wasn't just all churches, all Christian congregations saw this one way. And when we got marriage equality and Tulsa World had their huge front page, there was First Presbyterian, their thoughts on it, me representing the organization of Oklahomans for Equality, and another, Asbury United Methodist, their pastors, conservatives. They had me sandwiched in an Oreo, and then whoever was there decided they needed to get another reflection from religious community. So Todd Freeman, so it went from me being stuck in the middle to it was two to one. He gave a religious perspective on it, and I was always so grateful. Because we had trouble finding, at that point, I mean, United Methodists were not decided on it, the Episcopal Church was still trying to decide. Terry Baxter: And the Presbyterians hadn't decided on it then. When they finally did decide on it, he came out in the newspaper. Toby Jenkins: Anything else in your notes, Barry, that you feel like it's important that we cover? Because then I want to talk to Terry a little bit about, do you feel like we've... Barry Hensley: I'm good. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: Well, I want to ask about your marriage. You say it was 2005, is that right? Barry Hensley: January. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: You went to Canada to get legally married there. When had marriage equality become the law in Canada? Barry Hensley: Not too long before that, I don't think. Terry Baxter: I think it was about three years. Barry Hensley: Yeah, just a few years. Terry Baxter: But it was interesting that when we went, you had to go to the capital of the province that you were getting married in to get the license first. So we went to Vancouver first to get the license. And we didn't know our way around Vancouver. And so we went in a drugstore and said, where's the Marriage License Bureau? And they �34 said, go down the street. They didn't just tell us, go down the street. Oh, you're getting married? Oh, how wonderful. And it was... Barry Hensley: So cool. Terry Baxter: Then we went and he said, are we going in the right direction? And another person says, oh yeah, you're going in the right direction. And every place we went, the people were saying thank you for visiting us and congratulations. And it was so contrary to what it was like in the United States where everybody was, if they were anything... Toby Jenkins: A lot of protesters. Barry Hensley: Don't ask, don't tell. If they were supportive of you, it would just keep quiet. And we even went to a liquor store and they said... Toby Jenkins: So what year, what month would you have gotten married? Terry Baxter: January. Barry Hensley: And we went from Vancouver to Victoria. Beautiful little 1912 bed and breakfast in Victoria. And they were so nice. The couple that lived there, husband and wife, have since split up, I think. But they arranged everything. They arranged the marriage commissioner. They arranged the flowers. They arranged an after party. They arranged everything for us. It was just a wonderful experience. And we had just a handful of people. We had three friends from Tulsa. Tom Neal was one of them who came to our wedding. Very small. Dennis Neill: And I think maybe right before you all got married, two other individuals from Tulsa went there and got married in Vancouver and ended up living there permanently. Barry Hensley: Oh man, what a dream that would have been. Dennis Neill: And do you remember them? Were they an inspiration for your decision to go to Vancouver? Terry Baxter: Barry, we decided we wanted to do it and Barry got online to start looking at places. Barry Hensley: So where in Canada in January? Terry Baxter: Yeah, where is it warm in January? And we realized, well, on the coast there. Barry Hensley: That's right. Terry Baxter: It's warm in January. I mean, there were hummingbirds there in January. Barry Hensley: Oh, it's so beautiful. I just love it so much. Terry Baxter: So it was basically decided, where could we go in January in Canada to get married? And we had always wanted to pick a place that would be some place we could remember. And that's why we actually went to Victoria Island. �35 Toby Jenkins: Since 2005, you’d been together 25 years. Terry Baxter: We figured we knew each other well enough by then to get married. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: Why was it important to you to have your marriage, your relationship legally recognized somewhere, even if it wouldn't be recognized… Terry Baxter: I think the main reason was at that time, we were hearing more and more about people who are having medical situations in hospitals where their partner, longtime partner, wasn't able to be involved in decisions or even visit them in some places. And we had gone through all sorts of hoops. Barry Hensley: We spent thousands of dollars making sure that we had all the documentation we needed to protect ourselves. Terry Baxter: Even though you have that stuff, there's just assumptions if you're married that are made by people that you're gonna have 15 pages of documentation. But if you have a marriage license, it's just instant proof. And interestingly, I mean, I'm glad we got married in Canada because if the United States changes things and wants to retroactively do away with that, like they are with the people who have changed their sex on their birth certificates, they can't undo the sovereign act of the government of Canada. So the Supreme Court can do all they want to and we're still married. Barry Hensley: But the Defense of Marriage Act had just been a big thing at that time. And so we really realized that it wasn't gonna be in the United States for some time to come, which was fine. Terry Baxter: We were surprised, but. Barry Hensley: Oh, we were so pleasantly surprised. Toby Jenkins: Terry, what would you like to tell us about working in municipal government in the city of Tulsa? Terry Baxter: Working for the government in the city of Tulsa was very interesting. One of the best things about the city is people don't look at the city or any government job for that matter as very opportunity filled. The pay is lower than in the private sector. A month after I got hired, a private company offered to hire me, and I told the people at the city what they were going to hire me for, and my boss actually went to the city commission at the time and asked for special personnel action to raise my salary to what the people were going to pay in order to keep me. So that was pretty good. But you have opportunity because the city's involved in so many different things, and so is the federal government. I think that's one thing that our current administration didn't realize when they got into office is that there are professional people doing professional jobs that you have no idea what they're doing, and they've got backgrounds to fit those jobs, and you can't just put somebody in there and hope it gets done right. But the other thing that does is if you're working for the city, you have the opportunity to move around to different jobs. �36 I always, and maybe it was part of how you protect yourself when you're growing up if you're gay, is you learn more about everything than most other people do, so they can't question your knowledge. And so even though I was working in the finance department when I first started, I learned about all the other departments, what they did, how they did it, how they interfaced with each other. If you remember at that time in 1985, 86, personal computers were first being introduced into the workplace, and people were still smoking in the workplace, so all those beige personal computers quickly became yellow from the cigarette smoke. But I started learning more about the personal computers and going more in-depth, not just how to use them as a software user, but how they work. Toby Jenkins: Did you take classes or study the manuals? Terry Baxter: I took some classes. Most of it was self-study and getting in there and just doing it. Barry Hensley: I had my own IT guy who was great. Terry Baxter: We had just installed a point-of-sale system right after, not too long after I got there. So all the cashiers, instead of writing paper receipts and then going to the key punch people to put into the computer, they would actually transact it through the computer. And it was written in a strange form of basic, not visual basic, just basic. And so I kind of learned how to program so that we could, if we needed to be able to issue a different kind of license, I could do the programming instead of hiring people to come in and do it from outside. So I kind of learned that, was in the finance department supervising the licensing area, which meant making sure that taxicab drivers were licensed and insured and all that kind of stuff. And I have an interesting little story. One year when a new taxicab company was trying to get a license in town, I explained to them what the rules were. And so he went away and then he came back two weeks later and said, I need to get that license. And I said, well, where's your certificate of insurance? So one of my positions was regulating taxi cabs, and this is a quick story. But this man wanted to start a new taxi cab, he needed a certificate of insurance. And for some reason he couldn't get one. He came to my office and started taking money out and setting it on the table, said, how much is it going to take for me to get my certificate of convenience and necessity? He kept putting these stacks of $20 bills in the bands on the table. I said, you don't have enough money. Just go use that money and get yourself some insurance and you'll get approved. And so as soon as he left the office with his money, I called the police department and talked to their legal person and he says, well, you should have taken the money. I said, why? And they said, well, he can't be guilty of, we can't find him guilty of trying to bribe you if we have no evidence. And I said, yes, but if I took the money, I would have been guilty of accepting a bribe and he could have gotten me in trouble for that more than you could get him in trouble. So it �37 just didn't make any sense to me that you had to have, the proof was that you did it. But how could I not, how could I do it and not be guilty of doing it? Toby Jenkins: So in that capacity, you actually had people who tried to persuade y'all or they tried to bribe you. To persuade you or pressure them to get their permits? Terry Baxter: Yeah, and because you couldn't do business without the city license. You know, a restaurant couldn't do business without a city license. Toby Jenkins: And you couldn't sell liquor at the Pride event, unless the city said so. Terry Baxter: One of the other interesting things was that, so then they created the Revenue Collections and Enforcement Division, and I was the first administrator of that division, and it was created because the state was not doing a good job of collecting city sales tax. The city got the state statutes and it said, and there was no reason in our agreement with the Tax Commission that we couldn't also collect our taxes. We couldn't tell them they can't collect it, but we could make an effort to get them to pay it to them for them to collect it. I started being the person sending letters out and visiting places that were in arrears on their city sales taxes. It was an interesting job, but I couldn't talk about it with anybody because, you know, there were a lot of restaurants people really loved to go to that we'd end up going out of business because I put them out of business. So I won't tell you who they were, but let's just say some of the favorite restaurants in the mid-80s that suddenly quit business because they weren't paying their sales taxes. And the same with hotel and lodging taxes. Hotels and motels collect a tax from the people who stay there, and it's collected on behalf of the city, and the entity gets to remit the money to the city and keep part of it if they do it in a timely manner. And there was a particular hotel that didn't do that, and that particular hotel operator had a brother who was a bigwig in Tulsa education circles who called the mayor. And so the mayor called me and asked me, have I done everything I could to make sure that that guy has opportunities? And I said, I've done everything I can under the ordinance. Are you asking me to see if there's another way to do it? And the mayor at the time said, no, I just want to make sure. But I got the feeling that he was trying to convince me to look the other way for a while. But it's interesting. So you have some interesting things in the city government. And then the reorganization of the government came around, and it became a city council form instead of a city commission form. And so the Finance and Revenue Department was merged into the Treasury Department under the Finance Director. The Treasury Manager, she and I just, we were really good friends until I worked for her, and then all of a sudden I was some kind of threat. I seem to have that pattern with female bosses. They're afraid of me. And maybe it's because of the discrimination they get in the workplace. When a guy comes up and is below their position but is really good at what they do, they're going back to thinking, well, that person's going to take my job away from me because that always happens when a man and a woman come up competing against each other. �38 Well, I don't think it always happens. I was a gay man, but I didn't have a sign on me. So I went from there to the Fire Department in their IT area, and my job at first was making sure all the fire houses were connected through a very obscure form of CO land, which was a central office land that AT&T offered that nobody bought. And so they basically gave it to the fire departments to use for free because we didn't have network connections between the fire department buildings. And then I went to 9-1-1 and got a new computer dispatch system put in. 2000 came in, and we stayed up. Everybody had their hands on deck at 9-1-1, and most of the calls we got were people calling, I just want to see if 9-1-1 worked. Toby Jenkins: So just so our viewers will understand, it was Y2K. Explain that. Terry Baxter: Y2K, people who wrote computer programs never anticipated that they would have to have a four-year date field. When it became 99, it'd go back to 00 the next year instead of 2000, and computers would go crazy because then all of a sudden you're back a hundred years from where you were just yesterday. And so every computer application had to be changed to have a four-year date for the year instead of a two-year date. And 9-1-1 was a fairly old system, especially in Tulsa, because we were one of the first places that actually had digital 9-1-1 services. And so we had to go back and work with AT&T and the vendors to fix all those computers. Everybody was expecting the sky to fall when 2000 rolled over from 1999. Barry Hensley: So Terry's down there at the office, they're all waiting to see what's going to happen. They're all sitting at home, are the lights going to go off, you know, what's going to happen? Toby Jenkins: This was real anxiety. Terry Baxter: It was, it was. Toby Jenkins: We thought planes might fall out of the sky. Terry Baxter: A lot of money was spent fixing things in anticipation of that so it wouldn't happen. And I guess it was money well spent because the sky didn't fall. And the next day we didn't go back 100 years. We've gone back 100 years in other ways now. But it wasn't for year 2000. And then, so then I was there for a while. And then another reorganization came under Mayor Taylor where she took all the IT areas and moved them into one centralized IT department. I got moved out of the 9-1-1 public safety communications into IT and became a project manager there in IT projects. And then I went to the mayor's review group, performance review group, for a year. And then back to 9-1-1 as director for a year. Because it got taken away from IT but not put into police or fire because they were competing for it. And so the mayor made it a separate entity and I was over there for that one-year period. And then he just decided to put it over into the police department where it still is. Then I went back to IT as the manager of the project management group and that's when I retired. So I was involved in a lot of different areas. And I take that as they gave �39 me the opportunity to be involved in those areas because the city requires jobs to be posted internally before they go externally. And if a qualified applicant applies for it then they're not required to accept that applicant, but they're strongly encouraged to give that applicant the opportunity to succeed or fail in that position. So much so that they have a policy that for the first 90 days, actually you're on probation for a year, but for the first 90 days it's kind of like no fault. The other department, if they backfill your position and you're not successful in the one you went to, you can actually go back to your old position. So usually there's a vacancy for 90 days. Toby Jenkins: So let me ask this for our viewers. So you're working in civil service, basically municipal civil service. Every time a new mayor came in, did the people that worked for the city of Tulsa, were they afraid they would be fired because the new mayor can... Terry Baxter: The new mayor has influence over civil service positions and the new mayor hires whoever they want for their own office. But the civil service protections have policies in place that they just can't fire you to be firing you for no cause. Toby Jenkins: Why is that critical, Terry? Terry Baxter: That is critical because if you did that and you fired for no cause and you cleaned out everything every time a new mayor came in, the expertise that is necessary to do the day-to-day stuff that citizens expect to have done, I just cannot imagine if a new water commissioner got in and they fired everybody, then how would our water get, the chemicals get adjusted appropriately because all the chemists were gone. People don't realize how many professional people there are in any government, city, county, state, federal government. You can't just run it like a business because the business is so diverse. You have to have people with expertise in all those different kinds of business. You can have a business philosophy. You can be overarching, we want to make sure that we're efficient, but to just say efficiency is to get rid of half the people and then don't even pick the people you get rid of. You could get rid of half the people in a lot of departments, but you better spend some time evaluating which people are the half that you get rid of because some of them you can't do without. It's an interesting thing. Politics is very interesting. I think the civil service part of politics, of government, keeps politics from basically throwing the baby away with the bath water every time a new elected official comes in. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, it's such a dangerous thing for elected officials to be able to gut an entire community, a nation, a state. Terry Baxter: And it's also difficult for the citizens, because if you don't have consistency between things that occur politically, then your life is less certain, and you don't know, you know, everybody's life is kind of up in the air about what's going to be happening and how you're going to be accomplishing the goals and objectives of the people who elected the people in the first place. �40 It's very unfortunate that it's almost like the public needs to have an education on how government is supposed to work, and then start assessing, can we make it better, rather than just saying, oh, government is just a waste, there's too many of it, too much of it, let's chop off half of it and see what happens. And it's frustrating, because people don't get the things that they need to have. I would hate it if the police department lost half the police force, because who knows if it would lose the right half. Toby Jenkins: Right. What year did you retire from the city of Tulsa? Terry Baxter: 2017. Toby Jenkins: 2017. How many mayors did you work for and city council? Terry Baxter: Worked for seven mayors. Some not very long, some longer. I mean, who remembers Mayor Crawford? He came from out of town, and as soon as he was not mayor any longer, he left. Let's see, the first was Terry Young, all the way back to the 84. I wasn't working there in 84 when the flood came, but I was in Tulsa the night it happened. Toby Jenkins: The Memorial Day flood, Memorial Weekend flood. Terry Baxter: The big flood before we had stormwater detention ponds. And that was under the county, out of the commission form of government at the time. The commission worked real hard to cooperate with each other to get the Department of Stormwater Management created out of people from streets, out of people from water and sewer, so that they could start figuring out how to control the damage that the floods in Tulsa did. Barry Hensley: They were professionals, they knew what they were doing, and it worked. Terry Baxter: And if they had done it in a political way, we may not have the safety that we have now from floods and storms, because it would never have happened, because the politics would have kept people from working with each other. Toby Jenkins: So you would have been in the city in 2010 when we passed the ordinance where you could not be discriminated against because of your sexual orientation. I'm just curious, prior to that ordinance and after the ordinance, was there a different temperament at City Hall? Did more people feel... Terry Baxter: Well, interestingly, the ordinance got passed a couple years after the city actually put that in the employees' anti-discrimination stuff. So the HR department and the mayor at the time were progressive enough to put that in the policies. And I know of a couple cases where before that was in the city's policy, and in both cases, the person who felt discriminated against because they were different prevailed with the Civil Service Commission. So even the Civil Service Commission was... It's interesting what you have in the government. We had a person actually transition from being male to female while they were in their job at the city, and they retained their job at the city while they were through that whole process. And it was very difficult at that time because some people were very �41 discriminatory toward that person. The person needed to have a restroom to use, and nobody wanted them to use their restroom. And so the mayor said, well, she can come use my restroom. Toby Jenkins: Do you remember what mayor that was? Terry Baxter: Kathy Taylor, when she first got elected, which was interesting. After the transition occurred, life still is not simple for that person, because people will be people. And he, she, afterwards, he, before, and since he was there as a he and a she, depending upon who you're talking about, it depends upon whether he was a he or she was a she. But, you know, she had courage to go. I cannot imagine going through that process in the same position, in the same job. And ultimately, she relocated to a different city, because her marriage didn't stick, even though at first they were trying to make it work. And so it was, it was a very interesting thing. But the point of that was, is the city realized that their employees needed some protection, and so they built that in the policy. And then later, the city council decided, hey, maybe we need to have that kind of protection in the city. Toby Jenkins: Y'all would have gone through that same thing at the library, because I remember when... I remember when you got ready to hire the new director, I can't remember his name right now, Gary. Barry Hensley: Gary. Toby Jenkins: That was one of the requirements he had, wasn't it? Barry Hensley: Well, years before, I'm talking about 1990 or so, Mike Williams, who was the head of the circulation department at that time, I was in the InterLibrary Loan, we went to Pat Woodrum, lovely lady, because there were no protections at all at that time, and we just were asking to slip sexual orientation into the policies, because we weren't under the city or the county's jurisdiction. We were our own thing, you know. It would just need to go through the Library Commission to get changed, and she wasn't ready to do that at that time. She said, well, are you all having a... is there a problem? You know, is there an issue I need to be aware of? And we said, no, we're just kind of trying to prevent an issue from happening, and she wasn't ready to do it at that time. I don't remember when it actually went in, but it was kind of a non-event by then. Toby Jenkins: Terry, anything else about your time at the city? And you mentioned you saw a transgender individual who had a kind of a rough time and experienced some harassment. Did you ever feel that you were targeted? Did you ever feel like you were impacted by people who knew about your private life and maybe were just being discriminatory? And did you witness any of that? Terry Baxter: I don't know if I was lucky or just... I never had that personally. I did witness it in other departments. It's, you know, one of the things about the city is it's got blue-collar jobs and it's got white-collar jobs, and I always was in a white-collar job. And maybe there's less discriminatory action in that atmosphere than in the blue-collar job, �42 but I knew of a couple of individuals in Water and Sewer that were discriminated against and overlooked for promotions. And that was one of the other reasons that HR, I guess, was interesting because the change in the city's policy was started by HR, not by an external force. So they just realized that, and probably realized after there had been a couple instances where people had filed complaints with the Civil Service Commission and those complaints were upheld, that they were indeed discriminated against for things that had nothing to do with a job, that there needed to be a policy so that they wouldn't have to have hearings. Toby Jenkins: Let me ask you just your perspective, having worked for the city, understanding how government works, municipal government, why have we had so much trouble with the City of Tulsa getting counselors and mayors to push forward an ordinance where for the city you cannot discriminate against people in the public spaces, in public accommodations, where businesses, because this was an issue I raised repeatedly, we took them stories repeatedly with multiple city councilors, multiple mayors to say that people in our community would be denied services at businesses. Everything from restaurant supply businesses, to hotels, toTerry Baxter: Well, the reason is called politics. It's because elected officials do what they perceive the people who elected them expect them to do. And in Tulsa, and in Oklahoma, and apparently, quite many places in this United States, there are people who can't see past the end of their nose, who are in positions of authority. And what they perceive may be a misrepresentation of what their electorate wishes them to do. But it's been going on forever. A friend of Barry's, the one that he was talking about earlier, Barry knew a person who was working for the city before we even were working here. And they would go to hotels and try to rent a room. And an African American person would go to a hotel to rent a room and they wouldn't do it. So then she asked one of Barry's friends and another friend of hers to go and be obviously gay and try to rent a room, and they would rent a room. So that's been going on since a lot… Barry Hensley: That's 1979 or 80, something like that. Terry Baxter: It's just people, and people who don't think they have to, who feel that they have been given permission by their religion, by their government, they decide not to support people who don't believe the same way they do. Barry Hensley: Apparently, empathy is a bad word these days, and I can't quite comprehend that. I can't wrap my head around that. Terry Baxter: We had a friend of mine who worked with me at the city say that you can't have empathy for someone unless you are exactly that kind of person. So you cannot have empathy for a minority unless you are that minority. And that's contrary to the whole definition of what empathy is, but apparently a lot of people believe that. You can't have empathy for me because you aren't me. Barry Hensley: And- You don't know what my struggle has been.. It's very strange. �43 Toby Jenkins: Anything else about your time at the city of Tulsa, and anything else you feel like you want to include in our time today? Terry Baxter: No, I'm just glad that there are those people in this world who still want to push forward and not go backward. And we hope to be part of that, but we're old folks now. So I'm lucky. I'm happy to see what a lot of the younger people are doing, that they're picking up the mantle and not letting the right wing take the charge. It's good. Toby Jenkins: Anything you would like to say to the generation coming after us or people who see this interview, maybe in 100 years when somebodyBarry Hensley: I just hope they can comprehend what people have gone through to get to the point where we are, and that life is too short to go through all of this drama of preventing other people from living their lives. I will never comprehend why that would be so important to me. I don't care what you do, as long as it's not illegal. But I think we've just been very fortunate. I know I have, my entire life, it has fallen into place. Finding Terry, getting the job, having such a good fit, inheriting my parents' house, all of this, being able to retire and travel. And life has just given me every possible break it could, and I don't understand it. There's no strategy on my part. I don't know how it happens, but I'm very grateful for it. And thank you all for recording the histories of so many people while you can. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: Our pleasure. Terry Baxter: We're all different, but we're all trying to struggle to survive and help each other survive. That's the important thing. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: And it's our honor to be able to talk to people like you and tell your stories. Barry Hensley: This has been quite an honor for us. Dennis Neill: Wonderful. Thank you for sharing your story and your 46 years together. Barry Hensley: We'll have a big party at 50, I can tell you that. Toby Jenkins: This is June 30th, 2026. Today, Dennis Neill, Mary Bishop-Baldwin, Toby Jenkins, have had the pleasure here at Oklahomans for Equality, the History Project, to interview Terry Baxter and Barry Hensley. Thank you for your service to the citizens of Tulsa County. Thank you for your service to our community and for being such good examples of we're here and we're queer, so get used to it. Terry Baxter: Happy Pride. Barry Hensley: Back at you. Thank you. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2026] Terry Baxter and Barry Hensley Interview Subject The topic of the resource Terry Baxter and Barry Hensley Oral History Project Interview from June 30, 2026 Description An account of the resource This episode features a conversation with two long-time partners from Tulsa, Oklahoma, sharing their life stories, experiences with the LGBTQ+ community, and insights into the history of gay life in Texas and Oklahoma. Discover their journey through love, family rejection, activism, and resilience. In this episode, Terry Baxter and Barry Hensley share their experiences with LGBTQ+ advocacy, their careers in public service, and personal stories of love and resilience. Discover how their efforts have shaped community acceptance and the importance of authenticity. Interview conducted by Toby Jenkins on June 30, 2026, transcribed by Dennis Neill on July 10, 2026. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Barry Hensley, Terry Baxter, Toby Jenkins, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 30, 2026; July 10, 2026 2026 activism AIDS AIDS/HIV Barry Hensley coming out community Dennis Neill Diversity family Gay Rights HIV/AIDs LGBT history marriage equality OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript photo photos Pride Terry Baxter Toby Jenkins transcript Tulsa Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2005] Bill Bissey Interview Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcription of Laura Belmonte’s November 19, 2025, interview. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong> Bill was born on July 6, 1932, in Clay County, Illinois and passed on April 10, 2019, in Tulsa. He served in the Air Force and moved with his Tulsa-born wife from Illinois to Tulsa in 1956. Following a divorce, he moved to Houston for his job and entered an eighteen-year relationship until his partner developed HIV and died in 1996. When he returned to Tulsa, he was active with the Prime Timers, the social organization for gay and bisexual men. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 18, 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bill Bissey, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2005 AIDS AIDS/HIV available at Center Bill Bissey HIV HIV/AIDs interview Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Prime Timers Primetimers transcript video https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/2ba0854d31555f052589ee6f8f30d589.pdf c075226804ee57c66ba45d915a484f5e PDF Text Text OKLAHOMANS FOR EQUALITY OkEq History Project – Oral History Series Interview of Bill Francisco conducted by Toby Jenkins on September 13, 2011 Bill Francisco – Born September 5th, 1933, Passed December 25, 2024 Jenkins I'm Toby Jenkins, Executive Director of Oklahomans for Equality, and here we are at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center on September 13, 2011, for our Vintage Series, where we capture the stories of those who lived our history and made history. They came out, and we don't want them to have to go back in and keep their stories silent. So today we've got Bill Francisco, who will be my guest of honor, and we're going to find out about what Tulsa was like in the period of life that he lived here, and he lived in some other places and witnessed some very significant events associated with our community and the struggle for equality. Welcome, Bill. Are you excited to be here? Francisco Oh, absolutely. I understand that you just celebrated a birthday. Yes, I did. Do you really want to know? Yes. I'm 80 years old, September the 5th. September the 5th. Well, happy birthday, Bill. We welcome you today, and you've lived now seven decades on planet Earth. That's right. Any regrets? A few, but we forgot about those. Oh, you forgot about those? 1 �Yes, absolutely. I want to start a little bit today and talk about your early childhood and a little bit about what Tulsa was like in those days, and then we'll move through to some of the most recent things in your life where you've been honored by your own community, and we'll talk. I want to know some dirt on some people, so I'll be asking you some of those questions, and then I want to hear some secrets that maybe nobody else, because inquiring minds, want to know . Uh-oh. I'm in trouble already, aren't I? You were born what year? 1931. 1931, so that would have been in the middle of the Depression. That's right. I was a Depression baby. And you were born in Oklahoma? I was born in Oklahoma on a dirt farm right outside of Catoosa. Okay, born at home? Born at home. All right. Tell us a little bit about your parents. My parents were Portuguese. Portuguese, so that's what Francisco is? Francisco is the last name in the Portuguese. Francisco is a first name in Italian, but in Portuguese, it is the last name. The last name. Yeah, right. And so they were farmers. They were dirt farmers. Dirt farmers. Yes. And now did they raise their produce, and then they bring it to town and sell it? Is that kind of what they did, like drug farmers? Kind of like that. Yes. Now, where did you go to school? 2 �I went to, I guess, five grade schools. Okay. Here in Tulsa. In Tulsa. Yeah, yeah. Eventually, they moved into Tulsa into an apartment. Okay. And we went from apartment to apartment all until I was the sixth grade. Sixth grade. So I've been to practically every elementary school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now, what elementary schools did you attend that the buildings would still be standing? Several of those have probably been. Yes. Lincoln School, which is now Lincoln Plaza on there on 15th. In Cherry Street area? 15th and Cherry Street. It's Jason's Deli. I danced in Jason's Deli. And it was an elementary school. And it was an elementary school. All right. My first one was at Roosevelt. No, not Roosevelt. Longfellow. Okay. Longfellow. So it's now demolished. And there's the Native American Health Clinic there in Sixth and Peoria. Sixth and Peoria . That's where Longfellow Junior High School was. All right. So you attended elementary there. Yeah. Did you have some interest? Did you play sports or were you interested in music or dance? I didn't know what I was interested in. But I did become interested in the theater In the theater. 3 �Yes. And what was your first exposure to that? My first exposure was I was elected to play the part of the little boy, the pioneer woman, the little boy from Ponca City, Oklahoma. They was having some statue things for a benefit for the school. Right. And I was about this tall. And they said, oh, you'd be great as the little boy and the pioneer woman. You know? So I was all done up like a little pioneer boy. But it was all statues. And I had to stand still for three minutes without moving. And how old were you? Seven years old. Seven years old. Okay. Can you imagine a seven-year-old kid standing still for that long? What I did was I wanted to do such a good job that I held my breath for three minutes. It's a wonder you didn't pass out. And I almost passed out. You're right. I almost passed out. But I did it. And they thought it was great. They thought it was great. But I got interested then in the theater. In the theater. Because I love applause. Well, I think we all do. You like being the center of attention. It wasn't that. It was just the appreciation of the people who acknowledged it. Hey, he's okay. Now, did you ever do any dancing in those days? Oh, no. No. No. I didn't start dancing until I was in high school. 4 �Okay. I was a musician before that. What instrument did you play? Well, it's a bastard instrument now, but it was the accordion. Okay. And I think we have a picture of you. You're awful dressed up here. Oh, yeah. Now, there you are playing the accordion. Wow. Very distinguished. Looked like you should have been on the Ed Sullivan show. Well, this was taken in Chicago. At Lawrence Welk. That's right. But they were better than I was. But this was a competition at the Palmer House in Chicago, I think it was. The Palmer Hotel, I guess it was. And we went up there, a group of accordionists or accordion players, or whatever they're calling them, and went up there and competed in the national accordion. Now, where did you go to high school? I went to high school at Will Rogers. Will Rogers High School. And I think I have a picture of you. Looks like you might have your letter sweater on. Oh, yeah. I don't even remember this picture. Okay. Somebody sent this to me, and I said, are you sure that's me? Yep, that's you. No, I was a cheerleader. You were a cheerleader for Will Rogers High School? I was a cheerleader for Will Rogers High School. In those days, Will Rogers High School, is it in the present building? Oh, absolutely. Now, that was probably in the days when it was a brand new building, and it was the top design. I was in the 10th graduating class. 10th graduating 5 �class. And they called it Will on the Hill, because it was way out in the country, on the hill out there. All right. They called it Will on the Hill. Now, did you have any part-time jobs while you were in school? Like maybe work for a newspaper or anything? Well, my parents did not appreciate me going into the theater. Okay. So I left home very early. Very early? Very early. Had to support yourself? Had to support myself from whatever. I delivered the Tulsa World in the mornings so that I could go to school, and I delivered the Tulsa World out in the White City District. Okay. About 11th and Yale area? From 3rd to 11th Street, east of Yale. Yeah, the White City neighborhood. White City neighborhood. Yeah, it's not called that anymore. It's called Brayton Park now. Oh, is it really? At those days, it was called White City. Well, it really didn't mean White City. Right. It didn't mean it was named after something else. Yes, it was not. But anyway. Now, did you walk and deliver the newspaper or ride a bicycle? I did a bicycle and I did horseback. All right. Yale Avenue was a two-lane highway back then, and they had drainage ditches on each side of the highway. 6 �You're shaking your head. Do you know that? No. And they had these little wooden bridges to go through to the side streets, you know? And it was way out in the country. So I could ride my horse out there, you know? But the people of White City, there was a brand new, elegant addition. And I would ride my horse through their lawns to put the paper on their porch for them, you know? And when it would rain, I'd go through their lawn and put the paper on their porch, and they complained because I was digging up their lawn. Your horse was digging up their yard. Absolutely. So didn't you get fired from the Tulsa World because of that? No, they told me to stop riding the horse. So you went to Will Rogers High School. Yes. And you got interested in the theater. I got really interested in the theater. And when did you become interested in dancing? Because I understand that you had some interest in that. Yes. Actually, I was a little older. I was probably about 18 or 19 when I started to dance. Okay. I have your graduation picture right here. Graduation picture from Will Rogers High School. That doesn't look like me. You were very handsome. Yeah. That's a good picture, though. So when you were 19, you got interested in? In dancing. 7 �In dancing. Now, I know you rode horses, but what exactly is this picture? It looks like a mule to me. It's a toro. A toro. Okay. So it's a bull. It's a bull. All right. And I'm the back end of the bull. All right. And this is a theater group? This is the Tulsa Opera. And you were in a Tulsa Opera production. I was in a Tulsa Opera. Tulsa Opera first started out with operettas. You know, they weren't big enough yet. And all their first productions were all operettas. Okay. That was from Rio Rita. Okay. This is from the Desert Song with the Tulsa Opera. Then later on, they became legitimate and started to do the real opera. Okay. If this is an opera, did you dance or did you sing? We danced. Oh, yes. We danced. Okay. And I notice you are bare-chested, so they like to show off your bare chest. Well, I don't know. And this would have been in what year? Oh, gosh. Sometime in the 40s or 50s? 8 �Oh, it's got to be in the 50s. 50s? Okay. Yeah. I graduated in 49. It's got to be in the 50s. So about how? You were about 20, 22? Yeah. I was about 20, 22. Okay. And so you were involved with the Tulsa Opera and the Tulsa Ballet. At first. At first. At the Tulsa Opera was first. Then I got a scholarship to go to Los Angeles. And I went to Los Angeles and studied with Ruth St. Dennis Studio, which was a – people don't know her now, but she was one of – I guess – I don't know. I guess she was very famous as a spiritual modern dancer. And I got a scholarship to go – she was 82 years old when I went out there. Wow. Okay. Now, she didn't teach me much movement in dance, but the philosophy behind this woman just changed my whole life. She was really a remarkable woman. So you were out in Los Angeles. I was out in Los Angeles. Near Hollywood. Near Hollywood. And I studied. And I took lessons from Eugene Loring at the Hollywood School of Ballet. And I auditioned for a movie. This is when the musicals were all fabulous musicals, you know. What was it? The 50s, 60s, 50s? And I auditioned for a musical with Gwynne Verdon and Danny Kaye. And it was on the Riviera. But there was 500 dancers auditioned. I got to the final audition, and then I got a notice from Uncle Sam, come back to Tulsa, I was drafted. That brings us to this. That brings us to this. So there you are. Yes, I am. 9 �What branch of the military were you in? I was in the artillery. Army? Army. The Army artillery. That's where I started. That's where they drafted me, you know. Now, boot camp, where was boot camp at? Camp Chaffee, Arkansas. Oh, that's hot down there, wasn't it? Yeah, it was hot. Yeah, it was really hot. Really hot. It was very hot. So you went to Fort Chaffee for? Went to Fort Chaffee for my boot camp. For my boot camp. And then where were your assignments? My assignment was in Germany. I was very fortunate. It was right after the Korean War. It was in the middle of it before Vietnam, in between. And so I didn't have to go to Vietnam or Korea. They sent me to Europe, and I worked with the special services over there in Europe. So I had a good job, you know. I really didn't mind that much. I never carried a gun in my life, but it was pretty nice. Now, I see here that this is a Tulsa World newspaper, and it says GI Dancer, formerly with the Tulsa Opera, wins coveted medal in German Festival. So there's a picture of you bare-chested. They seem to like to show off your chest in those days. And you're bare-chested, and you're in front of a bunch of children. Tell us exactly what you were doing there. And apparently the Tulsa World was pretty proud. Tulsa was apparently pretty proud that... This article was originally done by the German newspaper. And it was all in German. And I couldn't understand a word of it. So I sent it home to my mother and said, could you get this, what do you call it? Translated. Translated, yeah. Get it translated. So she took it to the Tulsa World, and they just said, wow, this is wonderful. And they translated it and put it in the paper. Oh, am I moving? See, I get all... 10 �So you were there in Germany working with these school children. Now, what were you doing exactly? I was teaching them a lot of American dance in Augsburg, Germany. Okay. I was also helping to rehabilitate children from World War II. Okay. So you were part of the restoration. Part of the restoration of World War II. And I was teaching the children, and they honored me with this great honor from the city of Augsburg. Now, here's a picture. I don't know if our cameras can catch that, but it looks like you're dancing with someone with a crown on her head. Yes. That's the Princess of Augsburg. Okay. That I was dancing. And you got an opportunity to dance. Was she a good dancer? No. No, okay. But you made her look good, didn't you? Oh, yes. We just really, really appreciate it. And here you are with some of your military buddies. Yes, this is all my military buddies. Now, that was all there in Germany, correct? Yes, that's all in Germany. All right, so you did that in the military. And when did you get out of the military? 54. 11 �54? Did you come back to Tulsa? Oh, yes. Now, had Tulsa changed much because of the war? I understand there was a lot of building and GI homes were being thrown up. The GI homes were being thrown up. Brookside really became very, very, very big after World War II. With brand new homes and grocery stores and things. Little wooden houses, you know, all along Brookside. What did they call them? The little Cape Cod houses? All was done in Brookside. Now, Tulsa had big movie theaters in those days. And I understand you used to work at some of the big movie palaces. Yes. I was an usher. Of course, I still had to work my way through. Through living, you know, I was an usher at the Orpheum Theater. One of the most ornate, burlesque houses in the Midwest. It was absolutely elegant. Of course, they tore it down and built up a glass building there instead of it. Where was the? About a third in Cheyenne area. Second or third? It was a little bit past that. But anyway, it was a beautiful ornate theater. It was absolutely gorgeous. And I'd like to know where the Oklahoma Historic Society was at that time. Or the Preservationists. Preservationists, allow them to tear that theater down. It was just gorgeous. Now, were you there at that movie theater working there when they had the world premiere of Tulsa? Yes, I was. Yes, I was. And so you met? Yes, I was. What was her name though? Rita Hayworth. 12 �Rita Hayworth, yes. I ushered her down into the theater. They had a big parade down Main Street for the opening of the movie Tulsa. Okay. Big, big deal. Big deal in Tulsa. Thousands of people down there. And they had the premiere in the Orpheum Theater. And I was privileged to usher her down to the front row. Was she beautiful and gracious? Yeah, well. No, not really. She was kind of snooty. She was famous at the time. When they get famous and do things like that, you know these movie stars. Now I see in this picture, was this on a beach here in Tulsa? No. No? That's on Jones Beach in New York. Does anybody know where Jones Beach is? So you ended up in New York. Now how did you end up in New York? Okay. Did dancing take you there? No, no. I joined American Airlines in 1955, I guess it was. And I also worked with the Tulsa Ballet. Tulsa Civic Ballet at that time with Marceline Larkin. And with the Tulsa Opera, who became a legitimate opera house. I did Faust and I did, what was the other one I did? Faust and another opera with them. And that's where I stopped singing. There was this diva from New York, you know, they used to hire all the people to come in to sing the top roles. Well, oh, Aida, it was Aida. Okay. It was painted all in gold and everything. And at that time, they allowed all of the chorus and the dancers, they all had ballet in the operas, a quart of ballet in the operas. Well, they always allowed them to come in and sing at the finale. So they'd have a big crowd there. Well, I came in and I was right behind this metropolitan opera star in the back, just singing like mad. I thought I was doing great. She turned around to me and said, mouth it, buddy. I thought, oh, my God. I was throwing her off key. I have never sung in notes since. All right. 13 �I do some lip syncing now, but I've never done it. All right. So how did you end up in New York? You worked for American Airlines? I worked for American Airlines. They moved the accounting office from 910 South Boston to New York City. When they bought their first computer, IBM would not install a computer except in New York City, because nobody knew how they wanted them, you know. So they moved the entire part of American Airlines up to New York City. That's how I got to New York City. All right. And what did you do in New York City besides work? I understand you studied a little bit. I studied music. Yes, yes. I studied dancing, really. I was at the International School of Dance at Carnegie Hall. I did that of an evening after work, you know. So I didn't have much time to play because I was studying all the time I was there. And that's where I fell in love with clogging. They had a semester there of American folk dancing with square dancing and clogging and all. And I took a semester of clogging up in New York and I said, this is fantastic. I love this. I don't want to do ballet anymore. I don't want to clog because there's so much fun. And, you know, kids from three years old up to 80 years old can clog, you know. It's just wonderful. So I did that. And when I came back to Tulsa, I thought, this is really strange. I grew up in Oklahoma where clogging was all over the world and I didn't even think about it. I had to go to New York City to find out, hey, I love to clog. And I had it all around me all the time I was there. Now you're rushing ahead because I want to ask about some secret things. You were in New York. Did you ever, I understand in those days, lots of Oklahomans fled Oklahoma and they moved to New York for the gay culture, for the gay life subculture that was there in New York. There were clubs and bars, entertainment venues. Did you ever go out and have a drink at some of the nightclubs? Oh, yes, I did. And you met, did you meet anybody special there? I met my one and only partner. I've never had one since. And I was, what, 20, 24, 25. You fell madly in love. 14 �And I fell madly in love. His name was Nick. That was there in New York. And it was in New York City. Now in June... We used to go out dancing on Sunday brunch. They had big dances, tea dances they called them at the time. Sunday brunches, we would go out to the club, to one of our favorite clubs there in New York. And we would dance Sundays from 11 o'clock until 6 at night. He was the disco. He couldn't dance anything else. But he was a great disco dancer. And I had a great time. I really did. Now, and you were there in New York when the Stonewall riots happened. Yes. You were just around the corner, understand? What were you doing that night? Nick and I had gone down to the village to a little restaurant. They had these restaurants which was underneath the brownstones, you know, where they went down underneath it. Below street level. Below street level. They had these little restaurants there. And we went to our favorite restaurant. And we heard all this commotion going on outside, you know. And everybody in the restaurant got up, went out on the street. And we was a block away. We was a block away from Stonewall. But we saw everything that was going on down there. And... It was very frightening. Yes. But that started the gay movement. Now, did you have any friends who were injured or knew any of the people that were arrested? No, I really didn't. I really didn't. I really didn't. After it was almost... We stood out there for, oh, I guess about an hour. And we didn't even know what it was all about at the time, you know. And we walked down to the subway after dinner. And we went home. And the next morning on the paper, the Village Voice, we saw what it was all about. I wasn't in it, but I really, I really saw it. And you said there was quite a pushback from New York over it. And then there was a march a few days later. Yeah. Where they told everybody to come out and march in the streets. Yes, yes. 15 �And did you march in the streets with them in that parade? We had to work. And people were afraid still, weren't they afraid of being out? They were afraid. You had to have somebody with you. Okay. But the police was very cautious at the time. And that was the very first Gay Pride March? The very first Gay Pride March is in Greenwich Village in New York. 1969. 1969 it was. Yeah, and that started the whole gay movement. Look where we've come from. So whenever you, probably when we come around Pride time and you think about our parades, lots of young people today don't even realize we're commemorating an act of war. When they were waging war on us in 1969. And it was the retaliation. We stood up for ourselves. And we're commemorating when we stood up and said you're not going to do this to us anymore. Yep, that's right. So whenever we have Pride parades, do you ever allow your mind to think about that, that maybe some of our young people don't understand what it's really about? Oh, all the time. All the time. The young people today have so much freedom. When I grew up, there was no freedom in the gay community. No, there wasn't even a community. But the kids today have so much freedom to do whatever they want to do, whatever they want to do. And I just keep thinking, God, if I'd have had that when I was young, they have bars they can go to now. There wasn't a gay bar in Tulsa when I grew up here. I wouldn't even think about it. Except the Bamboo Lounge was the first gay bar in Tulsa. So you came back to Tulsa in the early 1970s? Yes, yes. I came back in, I guess about 75, I guess it was. And you had discovered clogging. I had discovered clogging. 16 �And you came back. In fact, did you hunt down the gay community when you got back to Tulsa? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I found freedom at last. You came back and told them about New York, right? Yes, yes. Now, what bars were there in that day in the 1970s? In Tulsa? Well, I can't remember all of them because I didn't go to all of them. My favorite was Tim's Playroom. Tim's Playroom. Oh, good. You could go in there and you could dance disco from nine o'clock at night until two o'clock in the morning without even stopping. And I used to go in there and just dance all night long, all night long. One of the greatest DJs that ever lived was in that bar. Now, you were talking about what young people have today. Yes. Whenever you think about the equality center and it being downtown, what do you think about that in Oklahomans for Equality? Oh, what you have done for equality is really great. I started out, well, coming from New York back down here and seeing all of the things going on, I helped start TOHR. Oklahomans for Human Rights is what it was called. Yes, Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights. That's what it was. There was about five or six very prominent people in Tulsa, and then there was me, the little guy that didn't have any money or anything. But I went in with them and I said, come on, let's do it. You knew Dennis Neill on that day? Oh, yes. Oh, yes, I knew Dennis Neill. I'll tell you something about Dennis Neill. He used to live right around the corner from me on 31st and Woodard Boulevard. This was a long time ago. And after work, he would jog, I guess it was called jogging then, he would jog after work down 31st Street down to River Park and back to home. I'd be out working in the yard. He'd always wave at me, you know, as he goes by. Hi, Bill. Hi, Dennis. And great guy. And I saw his first turnabout performance. Oh, he's done drag? I don't think any of us knew that. 17 �There was a big benefit out at this restaurant on 71st Street. It's no longer out there, no longer a restaurant. But they had a big turnabout benefit out there. And Dennis Neill was in drag. So you all formed this organization 31 years ago. Yeah. And so it's an entirely different world, isn't it, than it was 31 years ago? Oh, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. Now, when did you start clogging with, put together your clogging group? My first clogging group was 1986. I formed it because of the Oklahoma OGRA, which is the Oklahoma Gay Rodeo Association. We didn't have one in Tulsa. So I formed a group called the Green Country Cloggers. The Green Country Cloggers. And it was a great group. It was a wonderful group. And we performed all over the Midwest. We went from all the gay rodeos, from Denver, Phoenix, California, Kansas, Oklahoma. They didn't have one in Arkansas at the time. But I mean, every one of them. Texas, Texas was the big one. The big gay rodeo in Texas. And we became pretty famous, didn't we? Yes. Now, that was 1986. That was 1986. That would have been right in the middle of the epidemic. So we were having people, AIDS was in full swing and people were dying. And there were probably people here in Tulsa who had been infected. They were. They were. What are your thoughts about how the community reacted to that? I don't think they reacted. I really don't. They should have had more, but there was not enough information to say, Oh, hey, we're not affected by this. And out of my 12 cloggers, I lost seven. Out of your original things. So then we disbanded and I couldn't handle it anymore. And later on, when Tulsa got its own rodeo, SSRA rodeo, I started the SSRA clogging team, Sooner State Cloggers. Now here's a picture of your cloggers dressed up as the village people. That was the original Green Country cloggers. 18 �All right. And here you are. Are you the muscle guy or the police officer? I'm Felipe, the Indian. So you were the Indian. Well, that's a great picture. I love that. This guy right here, he runs the Eagle in Dallas, Texas. He owns the Eagle in Dallas, Texas. This guy here was one of the original owners of the toolbox. And this guy right here, beautiful man. Well, they're all very handsome. All very handsome. Yeah. Good group. Now you did clogging and somewhere in there, somebody decided that you looked a little bit like Santa Claus. And you started doing... Yes. I was doing, I was teaching clogging out in Glenpool at the Glenpool Community Center, which Glenpool was nothing then, I don't think. But we did a couple of shows out at Black Gold Days. I guess it was. Every year they had the Black Gold Days out at Glenpool. And I was working with the kids out there. And one of the organizers said, Bill, would you play Santa Claus for us? And I said, well, sure. I never get a chance to entertain, you know. I'm such a ham anyway. But I said, sure, I will. So they gave me this old Santa Claus, a moth-eaten Santa Claus suit and a phony beard. And I went out there and I clogged for their Christmas show. Well, the kids just went crazy. They thought it was the funniest thing to see Santa Claus clogging. And I said, well, you know, I continue to do it from then on because I made the kids so happy with that. And that's how it all started. We're looking at a magazine article from 1998 in The Oklahoman. And it's a feature article on you, The Dancing Santa. And it tells about his opera days and what he did in the restoration of Europe and his work with German children. But it also talks about how he just lights up the day and makes these kids' parties so exciting with Santa who dances. Well, you've had quite a remarkable life. I'm looking right here. You've been given seven awards. This is a lifetime achievement award that you received last year. Clogger Bill, with huge thanks from the Tulsa gay community, 2009. You are our hero. That was in 2009. And you've continued to do a lot of benefit work for lots of different nonprofits. And lots of organizations that serve people living with HIV AIDS. 19 �Absolutely. The other night... I'm a server. You are. I try to do everything to serve. I don't want anything for myself. Well, almost. You won't turn it down, is what you're saying. That's where we go. You know, the other night... I'm very humble. I just don't want anything, except I do love applause. Well, I think we all like attention. The other night, the Tulsa Eagle threw a birthday party for you, celebrating your 80th birthday. Unbelievable. And the place was packed. And such good fun. I want you to know, I was looking forward to that and I was excited being able to attend. And then I want our audience to know that a few days before that, you called me and you said, Toby, I want to do something to remember the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people who died on 9-11. Nobody's ever thought about them. So you wanted to inflate helium balloons in pastel colors. We spent all afternoon blowing up the balloons. And you said, Toby, I want us to launch the balloons a little after seven. So that was what I was so touched by because I'd been watching on 9-11 Sunday. I'd been watching all the coverage of the dedication of the 9-11 memorial and how that affected Oklahomans. And then I attended the event at the BOK Center that OCCJ sponsored. And then to be able to go to your party where our community gathered and we wanted to make sure that our people had not been forgotten, been recognized. And we set those balloons off at 7-15. We read the names of all of the hundreds of gay people who died on 9-11. And we set those balloons off. And it was the strangest thing, there was a set of jets doing a maneuver up in the sky. And right when we set those balloons off, the balloons took off and those jets crossed right in the middle of the sky. And there was this huge cross in the sky as we set those balloons off. Now, Bill, I checked. To my knowledge, there was not another memorial tribute to the gay victims of 9-11 than the one in Tulsa, Oklahoma that Bill Francisco wanted to do. It was his day, but you still wanted to think of others. Now, because of that, that night they surprised you. And I think probably this sums up your life. It takes a moment to change history. It takes love to change lives. The Imperial Court of all Oklahoma hereby proclaims the Youth Scholarship to be forever named in the honor of Clogger Bill Francisco Youth Scholarship Fund, September 11, 2011. That night they surprised you by naming a youth scholarship in your honor. How do you feel about that? Oh, my God. First, I wish they wouldn't do it until after the show. Because I was so emotional, I couldn't hardly dance. It's a big honor 20 �. It's a very big honor. Now, what do you think when young people, young gay and lesbian people who are applying for scholarships to be able to go to college and further their education, when they hear about this scholarship opportunity and they read the story about who it's named after, what do you want to be able to tell them? I want them to follow their dreams. Go for it. Well, thank you very much. You've been with us today while we've interviewed here on Vintage, Bill Francisco, who I think followed his dreams and he did go for it. And our city is richer because of his contribution. Thank you so much for joining us today. Applause How was that? 21 � https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/cae0cab67dbba006859779f324fcbc61.mp4 e71dbd9d5040432cf3641c9dd2b8169e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2011] Bill Francisco Interview Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcription of Toby Jenkin’s September 13th, 2011 Vintage Series Interview. Bill was born on September 5th, 1931, on a dirt farm outside of Catoosa, Oklahoma. He passed on December 25, 2024, in Tulsa. He made his first stage appearance in a school play in Tuls at the age of 7. At that moment, he was attracted to the theatre and applause. From being a high school cheerleader to playing the accordion to forming Green Country Cloggers, Bill was a ham. He served in the Army, spent time in Los Angeles learning dance and ballet and lived and worked in New York City before returning to Tulsa. He witnessed the first Gay Pride Parade in New York City in 1969 following the Stonewall Riot. He was locally famous as the “Dancing Santa,” exciting children throughout the Tulsa area. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bill Francisco, Toby Jenkins, Dennis Neill Subject The topic of the resource Bill Francisco Vintage Series Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 13, 2011 Bill Francisco Green Country Clogger Green Country Cloggers interview OKEQ Oral History Project oral history Oral History Project Toby Jenkins video Vintage Vintage Series Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2005] Bob Cisar and Kirk Holt Interview Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte April 9, 2005. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research</strong><strong>.</strong> Bob Cisar was born on February 18, 1942, and grew up in Oklahoma City. Married and then divorced, Bob served in the army as a surgical nurse in Vietnam during the war. In the interview, Bob discusses his career and social experiences in Tulsa, and early involvement with Oklahomans for Human Rights and Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights. With his partner of twenty-one years, Kirk Holt, was a well-known interior designer until his death on March 10, 2006. Kirk Holt was born on July 2, 1961, in Oklahoma City. He graduated in 1983 from Oklahoma State University with a degree in interior design. Together, Kirk and Bob ran a successful interior design studio and retail operation. Before his passing, Bob worked with Kirk in helping design the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center prior to the 2007 move-in. Kirk lead the design effort in 2017 when the Center underwent a major re-design and served for several years on the Board of Trustees for Oklahomans for Equality. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 9, 2005 Subject The topic of the resource Bob Cisar and Kirk Holt Oral History Project Interview from April 9, 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bob Cisar, Kirk Holt, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2005 available at Center Bob Cisar Dennis R. Neill Equality Center Equality Center Equality Center Opening interview Kirk Holt Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte OHR OkEq OKEQ Board OkEq Equality Center OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (OSU) Oklahomans for Equality Oklahomans for Equality (OKEQ) Oklahomans for Equality Board Oklahomans for Human Rights Oklahomans for Human Rights - Tulsa Chapter oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript OSU TOHR transcript Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) video Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2004] Bob Inglish Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource January 30, 2004 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on January 30, 2004. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research</strong><strong>.</strong> Bob grew Okmulgee, Oklahoma. He attended Oklahoma State University and received a law degree from the University of Oklahoma. While at OU, he came “out.” He returned to Okmulgee and entered into a law practice with his father. Although practicing in Okmulgee, Bob lived in Tulsa, where he realized in the late 1970s that the gay life was almost solely centered on the bars. With Dennis Neill, Mike Green, Gary Durst and others, in 1980 they became the Tulsa Chapter of Oklahomans for Human Rights, which was formed around 1977 in Oklahoma City. Bob served as the first treasurer of OHR. The early focus of OHR was to provide social and educational opportunities to the LGBTQ community in addition to the bars. In 1985, the organization became its own nonprofit under the name of Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights. Bob highlights the early challenge of engaging with the lesbian community to broaden OHR and TOHR’s outreach. He discusses the origins of the Harwelden Party which began in 1980, and the Black and White Party held for 10 years in the 1980s. He talks about his involvement with the ACLU and Tulsa’s and TOHR’s response to the AIDS crisis. Subject The topic of the resource Bob Inglish Oral History Project Interview from January 30, 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bob Inglish, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2004 ACLU AIDS AIDS/HIV available at Center Black and White Gala Black and White Party Bob Inglish Dennis Neill Gary Durst Harwelden Party HIV/AIDs interview Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte Mike Green OHR OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (OSU) Oklahomans for Human Rights Oklahomans for Human Rights - Tulsa Chapter oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript OSU OU TOHR transcript Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) University of Oklahoma University of Oklahoma (OU) video Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2020] Bob Ritz Interview Subject The topic of the resource Bob Ritz Oral History Project Interview from August 4, 2020 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Morgan Allen and Fraser Kastner on August 4, 2020. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong> In the interview, Bob discusses his early life, coming out in the late 1960s, his military experience, involvement in the Tulsa LGBTQ community and work on behalf of immigrant rights. Bob passed on October 21, 2024. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bob Ritz, Morgan Allen, Fraser Kastner, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource August 4, 2020 2020 available at Center Bob Ritz Fraser Kastner immigration interview Morgan Allen OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript transcript video https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/edde5cee0c87796495da8224fcd4dec0.mp4 5815341d8dca43351639e8b30a0e0535 https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/2e3bbcc43ab98711e95823244ffe02e6.pdf 9bfad13b7148d2a1c9be6cc96f451db7 PDF Text Text Oklahomans for Equality Oral History Interview with David Dees Interview Conducted by Toby Jenkins Date: April 21, 2026 Transcribed and Edited By: Dennis Neill using Reduct.Video AI Restrictions: Interviewee requested: N/A Oklahomans for Equality History Project 621 E. 4th Street Tulsa, OK. 74120 918.743.4297 historyproject@okeq.org 1 �About David Dees: Summary This interview with David Dees offers a deep dive into the history of LGBTQ+ community life in Tulsa, including early club culture, personal experiences with family acceptance, and the evolution of Pride events. It provides valuable insights into the challenges and resilience of the community over decades. Join us for an in-depth interview with David Dees as he shares his experiences and insights from decades of activism, community organizing, and the history of LGBTQ+ life in Tulsa. Discover stories of community resilience, the fight against AIDS, and the importance of education and inclusion. Keywords LGBTQ+ history, Tulsa, club culture, family acceptance, Pride events, community resilience LGBTQ+ history, Tulsa, community activism, AIDS awareness, LGBTQ+ community, pride, history, activism, community organizing, LGBTQ+ rights Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Background 03:00 High School Years and Early Independence 06:02 First Jobs and Early Adult Life 09:01 Coming Out and Family Dynamics 11:58 Experiences in Gay Bars 15:06 Navigating Relationships and Identity 18:01 The Impact of Family Acceptance 20:59 Police Harassment and Community Challenges 2 �24:01 Reflections on Parental Relationships 38:58 Navigating Heartbreak: A Lesson in Self-Worth 43:22 Family Dynamics and Coming Out 49:52 The Power of Words: Language and Identity 52:32 The Evolution of the Gay Bar Scene 01:02:25 AIDS Awareness: The Community's Response 01:09:43 Fundraising and Support During the AIDS Crisis 01:17:21 Community Dynamics and Discrimination 01:19:14 Violence and Resilience in the LGBTQ+ Community 01:22:37 The Pulse Nightclub Memorial and Community Solidarity 01:27:27 Fundraising and Support for the LGBTQ+ Community 01:32:36 The Role of Bars in LGBTQ+ History 01:40:05 Legacy and Influence of LGBTQ+ Icons 01:43:10 Compassion and Community Responsibility 01:49:21 Messages for Future Generations David Dees Oral History Interview April 21, 2026 Toby Jenkins: Good afternoon, it's April the 21st, 2026. We are at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center in the Joe and Nancy McDonald Rainbow Library, Joe here at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center. We have David Dees today with us a local business owner and community leader. Those present for the interviews, Amanda Thompson, archivist at the Equality Center, Mary Bishop- Baldwin, renowned journalist and petitioner in the marriage equality lawsuit and also helping here in the archives. And Dennis Neill, founder of Oklahomans for Equality. And our interviewer today is Toby Jenkins. All right, David, I know over the years I've heard you talk a little bit about your family, so I want to get just a little bit of background. Where were you born? David Dees: Southern Florida. Toby Jenkins: Southern Florida? Where at in Florida? David Dees: By way of Lake Okeechobee area, actually. Toby Jenkins: And what was your family, were they from Florida or did they… David Dees: Well, let's see, my mom would have been from Wisconsin, and my dad's family is all Southern Florida people. Toby Jenkins: Okay, and so you were born there, and what year would that have been? David Dees: 58. Toby Jenkins: 1958, okay, and how did you end up in Oklahoma? David Dees: My dad got transferred out here when I was 14. Toby Jenkins: 14 years old, and what was his background? David Dees: He was an insurance salesman. 3 �Toby Jenkins: Okay, and so you came, you left a place with beaches and sunshine, and old people. David Dees: And old people. Toby Jenkins: And you came to a place that had four seasons, bitter cold in the winter and bitter heat in the summer. What were your thoughts about that as a 14year-old kid? David Dees: I don't even know if I can tell that story or not. I remember my grandmother crying, and I'd ask her, what's going on? And she's like, you're moving to a place where you won't have a house. You'll be in a mud shack with grass on the roof, and you won't have cars, and you'll have to ride ponies. And I remember going up to my mom, I'm like, where the hell are we moving? And my mom says, I swear I've been out there, it's not like that. And thank God it wasn't. Toby Jenkins: And it wasn't? David Dees: It wasn't. Toby Jenkins: And so you would have moved when you were 14 to Tulsa? David Dees: Mm-hmm, 72. Toby Jenkins: And what junior high did you go to? David Dees: Edison. Toby Jenkins: Edison? David Dees: Yeah, Edison was a combo junior, senior, 7 through 12. Toby Jenkins: And then you graduated from high school there. David Dees: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Do you remember any details about your high school years? David Dees: We could smoke in the smoke hole. Toby Jenkins: Smoking in the smoke hole. Oh, Lord. David Dees: You know, it was a pretty fun time. Definitely different from what school is like now, for sure. I think it's more relaxed. We could leave campus to go eat lunch. We could do a lot of stuff, drive to school. I think they do that now still. Toby Jenkins: What year did you graduate? David Dees: 76, bicentennial, baby. Toby Jenkins: Yes. And do you remember how many were in your graduating class? David Dees: Oh, Lord. 650, almost 700. Toby Jenkins: Right. 4 �David Dees: It was big. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, I think it has less than 300 now. David Dees: Wow, really? Toby Jenkins: And so that would have been right at the apex of Tulsa and Tulsa Public Schools. I think in those days it had about 84,000 students in its school system. David Dees: Absolutely. Toby Jenkins: And it has a third of that now. Most probably because of private schools and urban sprawl and suburbs. David Dees: Well, I remember urban sprawl was starting to be a deal because Union was actually one of the bigger schools then, and then it became Broken Arrow, Jenks, and now even Bixby is considered really growing huge, I think. Toby Jenkins: So did you have special interests in high school? Were the things that you were involved in, other than sneaking around smoking in the smoke holes? David Dees: Smoking in the smoke holes? Toby Jenkins: Yeah. David Dees: No, no, no. All I wanted to do was to get out of school. That's all I could live for. Toby Jenkins: So when you graduated from high school in 1976, what was, kind of what was the climate in the United States at that time? What stands out in your mind and your perspective as a new high school graduate? David Dees: Seems like you made $1.75 an hour and I remember thinking, wow, if I make $600 a month, I can pay my rent, my car payment, my utilities, and eat. Toby Jenkins: And did you go directly from high school into the workforce? David Dees: Absolutely. I was working before I was out of high school. First job I had when I got here was I picked up a paper route with the Tulsa Tribune, six days with the Tulsa Tribune, and threw the Sunday World. And that's how I bought my first car, my first motorcycle. Toby Jenkins: What motorcycle? David Dees: A Honda SL125 dirt bike. Toby Jenkins: Mine was a Kawasaki. David Dees: Remember, they used to have the strip pits over at Yale and, oh gosh, North Yale. What is that out where the airport is? There's Pine and then Apache, Yale and Apache. I used to ride those strip pits all the time out there as a kid. Toby Jenkins: They're still there. They're still riding. David Dees: Still burning too, I think. 5 �Toby Jenkins: They're still riding motorcycles out there too, Sunday afternoons. So, your first car? David Dees: Oh, Lord, do I have to say that? 1976 Ford Pinto Station. A green one. Toby Jenkins: I'm more embarrassed than that. I had a 1976 Gremlin that was orange. David Dees: Oh, dear God. At least it wasn't that horrible gold. I remember that. I'm like, those hubcaps are horrible. Toby Jenkins: Now, was yours a hatchback or a station wagon? David Dees: Mine was a station wagon. Toby Jenkins: Oh, okay. David Dees: You know, hey, I was cool. I think it had the wood grain down it too. Toby Jenkins: So, what was your first job after high school? David Dees: Oh, Lord, that'd have to have been Fur’s Cafeteria at the Farm. Toby Jenkins: What did you do at Fur’s Cafeteria? David Dees: You do not want to know. So, I started out in the dish room, then wound up on the serving line of all things, and then wound up as a dining room supervisor out there. That was crazy. Toby Jenkins: And so, were you on your own? I mean, had you already moved out of the house? David Dees: The day I graduated, I broke my mom's heart. I'm up early and she's like, where are you going? I said, I've been telling you for a year that I graduated, I'm out of here. Toby Jenkins: Okay. David Dees: She didn't think I was serious. Toby Jenkins: Was it just because you wanted independence or did you feel some kind of... David Dees: I think it's a combination of things, honestly. I think I was figuring out that there was something different about me. You know, I already knew because back then, you would have to go sneak to QuikTrip or get a little Playboy magazine or something, you know? So, yeah, I knew there was something different about me. Oh, yeah, that's right. Holy crap. I was kind of a young kid sneaking out, going into the bars. Yikes. I've forgotten about that because I was 15, I guess. Toby Jenkins: Wow. You were already about 15. How do you identify? David Dees: Gay man. Toby Jenkins: Gay man. Ok. So, even at that age, you already had figured out you were different? 6 �David Dees: I knew at 12 I was. Probably, you know, it's real funny because looking back for years, I remember being in... What would I have been in? 3rd or 4th grade and I had a teacher, you know, a male teacher that I always remember was a striking, good-looking man and every time he walked by, I'm like, mmm, English Leather Lime. So, you know, maybe that was the beginning that there was something different about me back then. But I didn't know what it was, you know what I'm saying? Dennis Neill: That was my cologne, too. Toby Jenkins: I was Jovan Musk. David Dees: You know, I may have worn that, too. Aramis and all of those. Toby Jenkins: Alright. So, do you feel like you wanted to be out of the house because you knew you were gay or just you wanted the independence as a young adult? David Dees: A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Wanted to come and go as you... Absolutely all of it. Absolutely all of it. You know, part of my life, there was no business that was going on, you know. I'll never forget my mom even coming into my house one time. It was right after I'd moved out. You know, of course, we may have smoked a little weed back then and we may have had cute little bongs and nobody knew what they were. And I remember my mom had come into my house and I'd walk by my table and I'm like, whoa…And she has taken my bong that was like a little Roman girl holding a flower basket and had put flowers in it and then told me how dirty the water was in it. So yeah, there was a lot of reasons when I left home. Toby Jenkins: Where was your first place, if it was your place? David Dees: Oh my god, it was a trailer park and it's still there at Admiral and Yale. Toby Jenkins: Admiral and Yale. David Dees: Behind the K-Mart. Well, it used to be the K-Mart, McElroy now. Toby Jenkins: By the post office? David Dees: Yeah, well, it used to be tiny, tiny and then they made it for big trailers. I mean, there were twice the trailers in there when I lived in there. Toby Jenkins: Did you have a roommate? David Dees: Nope, no. Toby Jenkins: You were working at Fur’s Cafeteria. David Dees: Yep, well, yeah, by then I'd gone on to do something else. I don't even remember what I was doing then. I think I was working downtown somewhere. Toby Jenkins: Now, you mentioned that you could go into the convenience stores and you could buy magazines. David Dees: Your adult magazines. 7 �Toby Jenkins: Yep, you could buy them in there. David Dees: Absolutely. Blue Boy, Playgirl. Seemed like they actually even carried a few that were geared toward gay men. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, well, Blue Boy. David Dees: Blue Boy was definitely, but there was another one. I can't remember what they were, but of course, I remember going to the clerk. I'm getting this for my mom. Oh yeah, but your mom wants to look at Blue Boy. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. And so you talked about, you hinted at that you were already aware of gay bars and that you were trying to sneak into those. David Dees: Oh Lord, that's right. That is, okay, I do remember how I found my first gay bar. I was, Lord have mercy. This is when I worked at Fur’s and I was dating a girl who dumped me to go with a flaming gay man, of all things. Toby Jenkins: You were just too butch. David Dees: I don't know what it was, but then I remember one night hearing them talk about how, you know, we're gonna go by the gay bar and yell at the queers and the fags and I'm like, oh, cool, you know? And so I go with them and then of course, I'm like, oh, so here's the Friends Lounge at 3rd and Utica, cool. Okay, guys, I need to go home. I don't feel good. My stomach's bothering me. 45 minutes later, I'm back down there sitting in my car on the parking lot. Toby Jenkins: And it was, tell us a little bit about the Friends. That would have been your first gay bar? David Dees: I didn't go into it. I was scared to death, but I mean, I sat, many nights, I sat outside that thing and just watched, watched, watched from a parking lot. The first bar that I ever went into was the Old Queen of Hearts downtown. And that was on, what, like 9th to 10th on Main, but on the east side of the road. It's a parking lot now. Toby Jenkins: On the Fruit Loop? David Dees: Yes, on the Fruit Loop, absolutely. And that was also one that I sat outside forever and I remember, oh, Lord, this is a traumatic experience. I'm sitting in my car and there was this guy that had been, I guess, watching me several weeks just sitting in the car. You know how you do, sit down, look over the door, you know, that far over the glass. And he finally taps on my window. He's like, what are you doing? I said, I'm just sitting here watching. He goes, well, why don't you go in with everybody? And I was like, man, I can't go in there. What if somebody knows me? You know, and of course he's like, well, what the hell do you think they're in there for? I'm like, oh yeah, cool idea. So I go in there. I finally get the courage about 30 minutes later going to this bar and I walk in there and they had a quiet bar in front and then in the back was the disco area. And I remember walking in there and it was so dark, you know, you can't see anything. So you're just kind of stumbling through, making your way through. And she's going to appreciate this story because I'm going to name this lady's name and you'll know her. 8 �So I walk into this thing and then I go through the double doors of the disco. There's a strobe going on. I'm like, holy crap, I can't see anything. And all I remember hearing is a girl scream. Oh my God, that guy that just walked in. I went to high school with him. So I turn around and I run and this little flamboyant cocktail waiter had come in behind me and had his tray with the glasses up like that. And I mean, bam, I hit him so hard. Glassware flew everywhere, knocked him on the ground and I stomped him just going out the door, like running out the door, man. I mean, I'm shoving people out of the way. I'm in the middle of Main Street, almost to the church parking lot across the street because it was right across from the Christian church. And I am almost to where my car's parked and I feel somebody jump on my back and I go down into the street face first and I'm like, don't hurt me, don't hurt me, don't hurt me. And it's this girl going, David Dees, David Dees, I'm Patty Murray and we went to high school together. Sure enough, her and I used to sit in a smoke hole and smoke all the time. Toby Jenkins: Well, we've heard about the legendary Patty because she eventually worked the door at Zippers. David Dees: Yes, and then Dr. Beal's office. She was, you know, in Dr. Beal's office for years when the AIDS epidemic first came on. Or is it crisis, I guess? Both. Toby Jenkins: So, someone you knew from high school clocked you and then dragged you back in. I did go back in. And did you apologize to the waiter? David Dees: I did not apologize to that waiter. I was praying nobody would even remember me. Toby Jenkins: And so you went in and what was that experience once you got in there and it was somebody you knew who helped you? David Dees: You know, I remember the first song I remember hearing, believe it or not, Strawberry Letter 23. That old disco tune. And I'll probably never forget that song because that was the first thing playing in there. And I just remember like, this is pretty cool, you know. Basic room, it wasn't really much of anything. It was just a bunch of people dancing. And I loved the music. Toby Jenkins: Big crowd, small crowd? David Dees: For what I remember, you know, it was probably a pretty decent, it was a full room of people. I don't remember how big the room was at the time, but I believe that was actually, might have been one of the bars that Tim Turner was involved in originally before he went to the Old Plantation and some of the others that he did out, you know, around town. Toby Jenkins: And this was Queen of Hearts, if I'm following? David Dees: Correct. And it went by another name too, but Queen of Hearts was the first name that I remember it being as. And then up the road you had the Zebra Lounge and the Taj Mahal around the corner, which I just noticed they tore all of that down to redevelop that whole block now, where Bank of America built, the branches. 9 �Toby Jenkins: The Holiday Innmis across from the big tall building there. Toby Jenkins: So this would have been in the late 70s, would have been 77? David Dees: No, mid-70s. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So this was before you'd even graduated from high school, right? David Dees: Maybe, I'll let you take it. Toby Jenkins: Okay, very good. Because this was somebody you knew from high school. Yes, yes. David Dees: Yeah, right after high school. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. And so were you still working at Fur’s Cafeteria during this time? David Dees: Probably so, actually. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So for many of our viewers, they'll know you as a business owner and a club owner and a DJ and all of that. Tell us a little bit about your early adult life and your, I mean, I'm wanting to jump to how I know you through the clubs, but I'm sure there were some career changes and maybe some relationships. David Dees: Yeah, I was going into Zippers underage. Well, I'd met John Willis at the Old Plantation, which was at 51st and Yale. It had been a bar called Bojangles, and then Tim Turner took it and turned it into a gay club. And that's where I met John Willis. John Willis was, at the time, still married but coming out and in the process of getting ready to divorce. And he did some of their sound system and stuff. So, Lord, I'm trying to think. And then after the Plantation, it was shortly after, I think the Plantation lasted a couple years before it caught fire and burned. And then about that time, George Kravis had done, let's see, I'm trying to remember, I think it was Casablanca first, at 33rd and Yale. And it was supposed to be like a little gambling casino that had slot machines and card games and stuff. And it was geared towards the upper-scale clientele. And then, of course, it got raided by the state, shut down, and then reopened for about six months as Sweetwater Station. And Sweetwater Station was straight, but gay-tolerant. I mean, you went in there, you could dance with another guy, and nobody said anything, you just didn't, yeah, you didn't make it… Toby Jenkins: This would have been what year? David Dees: 77, 76, probably, somewhere around that. Toby Jenkins: David, we were talking a little bit about some of the early gay clubs, and this would have been in the mid-'70s, late-'70s, and you would have still been just a young man, possibly sneaking into these clubs, because you may have been underage. During this time, if I remember correctly, all clubs were private clubs, and you had to have a membership to be present, and you had to bring your own liquor, didn't you? Were they? 10 �David Dees: That's how you're supposed to, yes. The way it worked was you had a membership to the club, they'd say, what's your name? You gave them your name, what's your liquor? Crown Royal. So, what they would do was, when they bought Crown Royal, they put your name on the bottle, so everybody's, every bottle up there had a name, but you'd walk up to the bar and you ordered what you want, bourbon and coke, Jack and, you know. Toby Jenkins: So, the experience was similar to what it was, but this was how we got around and said we didn't have liquor by the drink in Oklahoma. David Dees: Correct, correct. Now, yes, very similar to today, but very different from today, because of the police harassment back when Chief Jack Purdy was in, in office, the TPD, they would come through the bars, you know, to check compliance. I remember they would walk through Zippers, and they carried these batons, metal batons, and they'd knock ceiling towels out of the ceiling, like looking for drugs, walk by. I remember one night, they walked by the water fountain that sat between the men's and women's restroom and knocked it over, looking for drugs. They were destructive. They'd knock tables over walking through the bar. It was crazy, it was the craziest stuff you ever saw. Back when the bars were downtown, jaywalking tickets all the time for crossing the street in the middle of the street. Toby Jenkins: They would sit parked outside. David Dees: Oh, absolutely, outside of the gay bar, well, outside the Queen of Hearts at 10th and Main, John Smith, you know, got a ticket for jaywalking. So, they made a point to put your name in the paper, you know, where you were jaywalking and where you were jaywalking at. You know, and of course, it was only at the bars, the gay bars downtown. It wasn't like they were doing it over at, you know, the Mayo Hotel. Toby Jenkins: So, you were working your day job, and you were living independent as a young adult, had your own place. Relationship with your family was still warm and friendly? David Dees: You know, that's kind of a weird thing, too. My family did find out right after I had moved out from home, my brother accidentally outed me because, you know, my brother was one of these kids that I'm, you know, go up to my mom and say, hey, can I borrow the car, where are you going? Well, I'm gonna drive by the gay bar and yell the queers in the bags, you know, and my mom'd be, boys will be boys. So, of course, he's doing that one night, and like I said, I mean, you got used to being chased in the bar by people that wanted to hurt you or do something to you. I mean, I'd had people chase me once with a tire chain from 35th and Winston, running in, get in the parking lot. High school kids usually is what it was, or other high school kids or young adults. Tire chain once, a tire iron that you used to loosen your lug nuts with. That sort of thing. So I remember, it was on a Sunday, because I was going in for the beer bust, and I'm walking in the front door, and just as I pulled the door open, I heard, queer faggot, and I turned around, I don't know what it was, it was just that night, it just hit me, and I'm like, I'll fucking kill you. I'll turn around, I'll go after somebody tonight. You've just caught me right in the right mood. And I bowed up and turned around, I was getting ready to go, and I'm like, oh shit, that's my brother. 11 �And it's my brother driving by 33rd Street towards the Get and Go [convenience store] in my mom's Pontiac. She had this Catalina, so it was a whale of a car. And he's driving by, and he's like, like that, and I'm like, oh shit. And I just went on in, and about that time, I heard chomp, and he jumped the curb, and had grazed the parking lot light at the Get and Go at my mom's car. And I look at it, and I'm like, shit, he's fine. I just went on in the bar, I wasn't gonna deal with it. My younger brother, he's six years younger than me. Toby Jenkins: Okay, and so he saw that, and then he told your family. David Dees: Oh yeah, of course, he went home. My mom's like, what happened to my car? Well, I was driving by the queer bar, yelling at the queers, and I saw David going in. And of course, my mom's like, well, why would David be going into a gay bar? And my brother immediately tells mom, well, maybe he likes the music, you know? And so nothing's said for probably about three or four months, okay? And then I remember one night, my mom walked up to me, and she's like, I wanna ask you a question. I'm like, okay. And she's like, are you gay? And I just went flush. I mean, I'm like, shit. And I looked at her, and very tactfully, I said, mom, I want you to think about the question you're asking. And if in your heart, you don't wanna know the answer, don't ask the question, because I've never lied to you, and I'm not gonna lie to you. So she's like, are you gay? Mom, again, I'm gonna tell you, if you don't wanna know the answer to this, don't ask the question. And so she asked me a third time, and I'm like, okay, yeah, I am. And then, of course, immediately, she kind of went into the spiel, like it goes against everything I know. It goes against what religion has taught me. And God, it was such a detailed conversation. I mean, she's really calm about it, but she's like, I don't understand it, and I worry about what kind of life will you have? Will people be mean to you because of it? What if somebody hurts you? She just had all these questions and these fears. And I said, mom, I assure you, I'm comfortable with who I am. I've navigated this water for a while, and I'm okay. Don't worry about what kind of life I'll have, or if I'm happy, or if anything, because I'm okay. And I said, I'm smart enough to know how to protect myself. I know where I'm safe. I know where I'm not safe. I'll be fine. And then her final question, and I made her cry on this, because she stopped and she looked at me and she goes, so, and she was dead serious too. So, when you go out at night, do you put on a pink dress and pink high heels? And I looked at her and I said, where in the fuck did you come up with that? I said, that's the stupidest shit anybody has ever said to me. Where did you come up with that? Then of course, immediately she burst into tears, because it took me a minute to realize that's just all she knew. It's what she had been told, or what she'd been taught, or what she knew about it. So, she wanted to learn, you know, and she told me, she said, I don't understand it, I don't like it, you know, and I'm worried that, you know, you might not get into heaven or something like that. You know, and I said, mom, I'll be honest with you. I said, you know, I've got my relationship with my higher power, and I said, I'm sure when my day comes, we'll sit at a table, we'll have a discussion. I said, I'm sure I'm gonna get passed on through, so, you know, don't worry about that. And. Toby Jenkins: Was your relationship strained after that, or… 12 �David Dees: Not with her, but it was like a couple of months later, you know, I'd gone over to the house, and, you know, I'd go over and help my dad tinker on carburetors on the car, stuff like that. We'd work on a lawnmower, work on my motorcycle, something. And I'd gone over there one Saturday morning, it was a couple months after my mom had found out, and my dad was odd, I mean, I'm just like, hmm. You know, he's got a burr up him, but I don't know what it is. And so we were going to an auto parts store to get a part, and I remember, we're sitting in the car, and we're going north on Sheridan, I think Guy Hinshaw's had a store at Admiral and Memorial or something at one time, years ago. And so that's really dating me, I know. So we're going to this thing, and I remember, my dad's not saying anything, he's just staring straight ahead, and I look over, and the first thing I'm seeing is, I'm like, and his knuckles, he's had the steering wheel so tight, his knuckles were white. And I'm like, okay, this isn't good. And I didn't say anything, and we're sitting there, and we almost get to where we're going, and out of the blue, and I mean, man, I don't think I'll ever forget the tone of his voice, because it absolutely set the relationship that I had with him after that. He was just like, and staring straight ahead, so tell me about this fag shit. And I remember thinking, uh-oh. And I was like, we're only going 35 mile an hour, if I open the door and I roll, how they taught you in school, tuck, drop, and roll, I won't get hurt that bad. And then, again, I don't know what came over me, I thought, you know what, screw this, I'm just not gonna deal with it. And I just looked at him and said, what the hell do you wanna know about it? And then, oh God, that set him off. He's like, you're not my kid, I regret the day you were born, never wanted to see you again, don't fucking ever come to my house again, I mean, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and I'm like, okay, and I got back, we got back to the house, and I got on my bike and I left. Well, it was about a couple of weeks later, my mom calls me up, and she's like, where have you been, you haven't been over here the last few weeks, where have you been? And I said, well, here's the deal, Mom, you know, if we wanna hang out or you wanna see me, you need to either come to my house or we'll go somewhere. I said, because Dad's made it very clear that he doesn't ever wanna see me again, I'm not welcome in his house. And my mom paused for a second and she said, I'm having dinner, dinner will be ready at 7.30, be at the front door, and I said, no, you don't understand. You know, Dad's told me not to come back to the house, I'm not coming back to the house. And she repeated herself again, she said, dinner will be on the table at 7:30, be at the door, and I'm, yes, ma'am. So I did, I showed up at the house, knocked on the door, and she came, and we lived at this house at 35th and Joplin, so it sits up on a hill, has a long sidewalk to it. And I walked up to that thing, walk up to the door, knocked on the door, and she opened the door, and she goes, oh, hold on just a second. And she went and she pushed the door closed, but then it came back open about that far. And so I'm standing there at the door, and God dang, and now this is what solidified my relationship with my mother, okay? I mean, my dad already did what he did that, you know, set the tone for future things with him. But my mom, you know, you gotta 13 �remember too, my mom was June Cleaver from Leave It to Beaver. You know, hair in place, white pearls, always a pretty tote and fetch housewife. Honey, I'm home, get me my beer. Okay, dear, here's the paper. I mean, she just, that was my mom. She was just a product of that era, you know? So I never heard her raise her voice to my dad. She never nothing. And the only way I know to describe this is probably pure, raw anger, maybe a little bit of hatred, I don't know it was. It was just so raw. But I heard her scream at my dad. At the top of her voice she's like: this is half my house, he's my son and as long as I live here he'll always be welcome here. And I turned, I walked off, I was, I was like hell, no, I ain't going in there. And I just walked down the sidewalk. It spooked the shit out of me and I'm going down, I'm getting in my car, I'm almost at my car in the street, getting in my car and my mom, holler, she said: where are you going? And I just stopped. And I did. I just didn't know what to do. I absolutely did not know what to do and I just kind of looked at her and there she goes, I'm fixing to put dinner on the table, come on. And I stood there for a second. She said. I said, come on. I said yes, ma'am, you know. And I walked up the stairs and went into the door and, man, I didn't know what I was gonna see. Honestly, it was like I think, maybe I felt like I was gonna see the silence of the land, slaughter or something. I just don't know what I thought and I walked into the table- my dad's sitting at the table, my brother and my sister is sitting at the table and of course my mom's got her apron on and she goes, have a seat, I'm fixing to serve dinner and nobody looked up. Everybody was just looking down at the table. I mean that's the most uncomfortable dinner I've ever had in my life, but you know, it was, it was really weird. After that, with my dad, it was over. My dad tried to pretend that it just never happened. Okay, the stuff, the stuff that he said you just you never forget. I mean, you know. But it taught me a very powerful lesson: you never say anything in anger, because once you've spoken words, you can't take them back. And I never forgot anything that he said. You know I'll never forget him saying: I regret the day you were born. You know, I wish I'd never had you. You're not my child. I mean that ride home, I mean it was just like duck, I'm just a boom, boom, boom. And I just sat there, you know, and just you know. And I finally told him: dude, I remember telling. I said you know what, dad, you have the right to feel the way you feel, and I understand it and I respect that and if that's how you feel, so be it. You know it is what it is, you know, and that was the last thing I really said to him, you know. And then of course, the deal happened, you know, with my mom doing what she did that night. So my mom honestly, truly taught me what the definition of unconditional love is: absolutely 100% compassion, unconditional love, all of it. You know. Now my dad, on the other hand, just tried to pretend like it had never happened. And you know it, it never…. I don’t know, maybe I made peace with it. I don't know that I ever made peace with him. I just never brought it up with it again. But my relationship with him was never the same. Now, in his final years, when he did get finally and really super poor health- and I knew it was to the point that my mom just could no longer deal with it- I did move back to where they were living to help her with him, you know. 14 �And then, of course, he lived about two weeks afterwards his health had deteriorated pretty bad and he would be like, you know, I wish you'd move out here, I wish you'd come out here and I just, you know, I never, I was never gonna be a dick to him or disrespectful to him, but I just, absolutely I think…I don't know if I was just hurt or if I had just lost respect for the man, in all honesty. Toby Jenkins: That was powerful. Very painful for you to talk about it, but now, you probably over the years, you have interacted with people who have… David Dees: It absolutely shaped me. It reminds me of something that happened at Majestic. Golly, I bet we hadn't been open three or four years. And I remember this kid come, and I call him kid, I don't mean it to be insulting, but I mean, to me, especially being almost 70, I mean, an 18, 19, 20 year old is a kid to me, you know? And I remember this little boy came running up to me and he said, he goes, David, one of my friends is crying, you know, on the porch, something's happened. Can you go help him? And I'm like, oh God, you know? Cause I didn't, at that point, I didn't know what happened. Somebody beat this kid up, somebody do something to him, what's happened? So, you know, I came down the stairs, you know, and this kid's following me. The next thing you know, there's a couple of kids, you know, boys and girls following me. And I, as I get to the front door, I hear this kid sobbing. And I mean, the minute I heard the sob, I'm like, okay, this is a broken heart cry. I mean, I knew what it was, you know? So, I walk out here and it's this young boy, and I bet he's probably 19 or 20. I know he wasn't drinking age, he couldn't have been drinking age. And he's sitting on that park bench we had at the front door and he's just crying. And I'm like, okay, buddy, tell me what's going on that is so terrible that you sound like you've lost your best friend. I said, what's going on? You know, and he's like, my... b-boyf-... boyfriend just broke up with me. And of course, he's blowing snot bubbles and everything, you know? And I just chuckle, I'm like, oh God, your first love. Okay, it makes sense, you know? And so, you know, I just kind of looked at him and I said, okay, tell me a little bit about what's going on here. You know, how long have you known this guy? Th-... three months. I'm like, okay, how long y'all been, how long y'all been together again? Th-th-th-th-th-three months. I'm like, okay, and you're how old? N-n-nineteen, I think he said he was nineteen, because I remember saying, okay, to make that math easy for me, let's just say you're 20. So let's see, if you're 10 years old, that's 3,600 days. So if you're 20 years old, that's 7,200 days, you know, that you've lived life. You know, of course, this kid's just kind of looking at me. And I said, so what happened? He was like, he c-c-c-ccheated on me. And I said, okay, is it the first time? Th-... three times. And I said, so you've been together 90 days out of the 7,200 days you've been alive. You've been with somebody 90 days, and he's cheated on you three times in 90 days out of the 7,000 days you've been alive. Yes. And I said, I just looked at him, I said, do you think you deserve that? You know, is that what you think you deserve? And he's like, no. And I said, you know, I wish I could tell you that in a perfect world, this never happens, I said. But the reality is, you're probably gonna go on to love multiple people, and you're probably going to, I hope it doesn't happen, but you're 15 �probably going to go through several relationship breakups. I mean, it's gonna happen. I said, I'm glad you found out in 90 days out of the 7,000 days you've been alive, rather than go through a long time with somebody to find out that they've been doing things like this to you for a long time. I said, the reality is, you're gonna be okay. You know, pick yourself up. You've got friends in here. They're scared to death, they're worried about you. And of course, a couple people are peeking around that wall looking, you know. And I said, you know, they're worried about you. You'll be fine, you know. You're gonna go on, things will happen, you'll be fine. I promise you, you'll be fine. You know, blow your nose, go back inside, and have fun with your friends, I said. But most importantly, know what you are worth. And know that, you know what, if somebody that you've known in that short a period of time can admit that kind of feeling and make you feel that horrible, go, know what you're worth, because you're worth more than that. Toby Jenkins: Wow, powerful. David Dees: Majestic to me has always kind of been like a little ministry, because I mean, and I've described it as that. That's exactly what it was to me. Toby Jenkins: Absolutely. David Dees: And maybe that's been the key to its longevity. Toby Jenkins: So, all of this is very good insight into what our community's like. You mentioned that your brother would call you these names and you were going to these gay bars. David Dees: There's an interesting story on that. My brother was so horrified by what, because he never intended that to happen. He just honestly answered a question to my mother, you know. And then, of course, shortly after that, he moved to Dallas and it was, let's see, my dad died in 84 that my mom was killed in a car wreck a year later. My dad died at Thanksgiving of 84. My mom got killed at Christmas of 85 and let's see. So Jim graduated- well, he was graduated from college when my mom got killed because she was going to his college graduation. I should have been in the car with her. I had gone to a Christmas party the night before and was hungover and didn't make it. So he, once he graduates, he goes to Dallas. So I guess it was seven, seven or eight years later he called me. He's like: I'm coming to town, let's hang, let's hang out. And I said, well, you know, I'm going out with some friends Friday night. You know, if you want to, you you can go with me. I'm going to Zippers. Yes, because it's before Zippers is closed. So I guess it's several years later, actually a couple years later, because Zippers closed, I think in 88, somewhere around there- and Jim was like: okay, and I told him I'm like: don't be an ass if you, if you're going, if, because you know I was, I was in a long-term relationship during that period from 76 to about 83 or 4, you know, and Jim knew about it. He always kind of made jokes about like where's your wife, or you know where's the other woman had, or the little woman, or so you know, he just made comments like that. And so I said something to him about, don't be an ass. You know, I'm gonna be out with some friends. If you want to come hang out- you truly want to hang out, like you 16 �say you do- then let's go. So we're in Zippers and it was busy- and we're standing by the dance floor. You know that long dance floor. So we're between the restroom and the dance floor staring at the DJ booth and a guy walked by and Jim goes- he's cute, and I bit my tongue because I'm like man, I'm gonna knock the hell out of you, because I thought I wasn't sure if he's mocking me or or just being an ass or what you know, and I don't say anything. And then, probably about another 15 or 20 minutes he's like he's hot, and again I'm just, I'm holding my composure, and then all of a sudden he just takes off and I'm like good, I don't have to deal with you. And about 30 minutes later he shows back up. He's like, I got his phone number and I went, whoa, whoa, whoa, dude, what the hell's going on here? I am confused. I'm like, have you switched teams or what? You batting with us? Yes, yeah. And so I looked at him. I said: you know, are you, are you jacking with me, are you serious? He goes: no, I'm serious, and I said so, when did this happen? And he said, he said he always knew, which is why he was driving by Zippers when he saw me going in. But he said my dad's reaction was so adverse that he was afraid to come out and that's why he snuck off and went to Dallas and had been out living in Dallas. Toby Jenkins: So your mother would have died. David Dees: They never knew. Toby Jenkins: So your parents… David Dees: My parents never knew about him. Now I remember my dad, you know, which goes back to the story. My dad would try- well, you know. Well, let's, I'm gonna work on the lawnmower today. Why don't you come by? And I just at this point wanted nothing to do with him. I mean, you know, I was like I already know who you are. I'll probably never forgive you for all of that. And I remember…One day, you know he said something he's like: well, you know you, just you don't come over, you don't hang out anymore. And I, I just lost it on him and I remember looking, I said you know what you, you and I, our dates are done, I'm done, I'm out of here. You know I'm, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not your buddy, your pal anymore. I said: but I tell you what, you want to play daddy to somebody. You've got a kid in there, a young, a young son in there. I suggest you be a man, you play daddy to him, you know, and that's. I walked off from my dad. That was probably really one of the last few things I really said to my dad a lot as far as anything else. I would acknowledge him. I'd say hi, but that was really the last really hard conversation. And he did, he stepped up to the bat for my brother, you know, and became a good dad to my brother. But my brother was so horrified by what had happened that he was afraid to come out. Toby Jenkins: So I wanted to ask you, you have the recollection of them calling us queer and faggot and saying horrible things. Some of the stuff your dad said. What are your feelings about, we've asked this in interviews, how we use phrases today that are painful to us of a certain age, but yet people want us to use those phrases to identify our community? David Dees: I don't like the words, and for the most part, I won't use the words. 17 �Toby Jenkins: The words? David Dees: Fag, queer, you know, sissy, just a lot of them. That being said, I have learned to respect the fact that maybe you will use it, or you don't like to use it. And that's probably an age thing, like I said, I've gotten to the point where I respect the fact that I don't have to like it, I don't have to agree with it, but that's your choice to do. It's not being used out of malice. So I guess it's just a word. It's only got the power that you give it. I mean, let a non-alphabet soup person use the word. I wouldn't say let a non-gay person, but I mean, trans people I think could say it. They're entitled to use it, gay people, lesbian. There's a lot of the definitions maybe that I don't really quite understand because they didn't exist when I was growing up. But if you're in any part of the community, then I feel like it's your choice if you want to use it and you're okay with it, because maybe it does mean something different to you than it does to me. Toby Jenkins: Is it painful to you if somebody calls you queer? David Dees: I don't like it. Toby Jenkins: Does it bring back some of those emotions where you experienced verbal harassment? David Dees: Oh, it'll piss me off. Because to me, it's a derogatory thing. I mean, I depict it like I said, the N-word. I mean, it can be a very powerful derogatory term. And again, I grew up in that era. I remember even for black people, I remember what it was like for them. I saw it firsthand. Toby Jenkins: Okay, so we have you as a young adult. We've talked a little bit about this, and I just want to…when did you make the transition when you began to work for the clubs? And that became... David Dees: Early 20s. I was in my early 20s. Toby Jenkins: And so it has been a lifetime career, right? David Dees: Pretty much, yes. Toby Jenkins: Okay, so that would have... Tell me about your first job in a gay bar or a club. David Dees: That would have been in Zippers. Yeah, it would have been in Zippers. Toby Jenkins: Really? David Dees: Yeah, absolutely. Toby Jenkins: And that would have been what year? David Dees: 84, 85. Toby Jenkins: Work you a bartender or… David Dees: Really technical-minded. I mean, I loved electronics, all this stuff. So I learned the lighting system. I could go in and rebuild those lighting controllers and 18 �those drivers. Back then, everything was all mechanical parts, transistors, Triax, just different electrical parts. So something crapped out, you had to chase it down, troubleshoot it down, solder it back, rebuild it. When the lighting fixtures died, changed transformers in them, I just learned how to... The electrical end of it, and knew it, like the back of my hand was very good at it, picked up on it real quick. John Willis was a genius, and he was just a big old geeky nerd. I mean, he was a nerd, and a hi-fi nerd. He went on to own the Gramophone back in the day, which was a big major high-end hi-fi shop. The sound that was in that club, there's a really storied history on that club. I mean, when Kravis had that built, Richard Long and Associates out of New York, designed and built it. The cabinets were custom made for that room. Toby Jenkins: What club? David Dees: Zippers. Toby Jenkins: Kravis had..George Kravis? Dennis Neill: Yeah, and wasn't it the same team that did Studio 54 in New York? David Dees: Yes, yes. Sound Garage, was it Sound Garage? Or what was the name of that? Something Garage, [Paradise Garage] but yes, the Palladium. Yes, that was the company that built the sound systems for these big clubs. And as a matter of fact, was it, there's a hi-fi magazine, a nationwide hi-fi magazine at the time, that did an article about Zippers, talking about how Richard Long and Associates out of New York had designed this sound system and how it was the most powerful sound system west of the Mississippi. Dennis Neill: That's one reason I'm wearing hearing aids. David Dees: Oh, it was an incredible, you know, for a long time, I actually had part of that sound system too. I still have the lighting controllers that came out of that room. Toby Jenkins: So, you were the lighting and sound tech, or were you the DJ? David Dees: Yes, lighting and sound tech. I didn't learn to DJ until 88, 89, when Jeff Lunsford had turned that bar into Sterling's after John closed Zippers. Toby Jenkins: Real quickly, Crash Landing did you ever DJ at Crash Landing? David Dees: No, Crash Landing was over about, oh Lord, Lewis. So, 3rd and Lewis's Warehouse Market, there's a cul-de-sac about 4th and Lewis. So, Crash Landing was on the north side of the cul-de-sac, the church was on the south side. Toby Jenkins: Okay. David Dees: But no, Crash Landing was a competitor to Zippers. Toby Jenkins: Okay, would have been open about the same time. David Dees: Yes, I think Crash Landing maybe only lasted what, a year, two years, maybe. It wasn't a very long-lived club. 19 �Toby Jenkins: This was, you say, around 1984? David Dees: 85, 86, somewhere around there. Toby Jenkins: You would have been 22, by then 23, something like that. David Dees: Oh, I gotta do the math. So, 58, yes, yes, I would have been in my mid20s. Toby Jenkins: So, your first job working, that was your full-time job, what you did. David Dees: Yes. Toby Jenkins: And you mentioned you were in a relationship. So, you would have been upfront and personal to see what was happening in the community. David Dees: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Do you remember this organization, which in those days… David Dees: Yes, that's what I was fixing to say. It was TOHR that had the helpline back in John Willis' office. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, which was at Zippers? David Dees: Correct. John had a line back in his office, and it only operated a few hours, on Friday and Saturday night, like seven to nine or something like that. But it was a phone number that you could call. They would tell you where the bars were at, where there were resources for us, if you needed help. I mean, it was literally the lifeline, the beginning of a lifeline for the community. Toby Jenkins: And so, you were aware that there were other people beginning to organize to address… Speaker 3: Yes. Well, and it seems like, when did we do the first Pride at Mohawk Park? I could swear that that went on back, maybe in the late 70s, but I can't remember if it was late 70s or early 80s, because, okay, the first Pride I remember at Mohawk Park, Zippers had a part in it. I think the Toolbox had a part in it. Was it Toolbox, or was it Tracy's New Edition back then, even? Toby Jenkins: And these would have just been picnics in the park? David Dees: Yes, yeah, yeah. And Coors came out and would have the beer tent. They would supply the beer for us. So, the bar owners would buy hamburgers, hot dogs, and supply the fixings. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, and then the organization took over the Pride events in 1882. Dennis Neill: Actually, the organization did the first Pride in Chandler Park in 1982, yeah. And we did a few, but then, you're correct, then it morphed into more of the bars taking over Pride for a number of years. David Dees: Well, now this, we were doing this, I think, since like in the 70s, I remember this. 20 �Toby Jenkins: This is important. I've had individuals talk about there were some picnics before the organization had to take it over. David Dees: Yes, yes. Toby Jenkins: Now, it would be helpful if eventually we can get enough people to give us the details. David Dees: Well, you know what? I do think, after TOHR, because like I said, TOHR didn't exist in the beginning, and then they did exist with Zippers. So, TOHR may have taken over Pride later on. But yes, the first couple ones that I remember were in Mohawk Park, and way at the very back of the park. I think that area's even closed down now. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. I feel like it's real important that while some of you guys are still alive, we need to find somebody who has some documentation. David Dees: Tim Turner should have some information. Toby Jenkins: I keep hearing that there were some Pride picnics, and I know when this organization had, because they've got the receipts to prove it when they had to take over. And it developed, because I know, I saw the records from 1982 where they estimated they had about 400 at Chandler Park. David Dees: Yes. There's a lot of people. Toby Jenkins: So, okay. So, there was that. And this organization, and Dennis and his collaborators felt like they needed to organize to take care of the community. David Dees: Before TOHR, did it have a different name, or was it TOHR, then it became OHR? Dennis Neill: Other way around. David Dees: It was OHR, and then you did a branch of TOHR. Dennis Neill: Correct. David Dees: Okay, all right. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So, about this same period, David, how many gay bars and clubs were there in Tulsa? David Dees: Oh, Lord. Toby Jenkins: Let's say about 1984. David Dees: I'm gonna say 12. Toby Jenkins: Okay. David Dees: Probably, because they were scattered all over town. Toby Jenkins: Were places like Zippers, were those gender inclusive? Were there men and women in there together, lesbian couples, male couples? 21 �David Dees: You know, Zippers was. Toby Jenkins: Okay, was there… David Dees: While it was, I'm gonna say it was probably a third women and two thirds men, but Zippers was very… Toby Jenkins: And you would have had drag queen entertainment? David Dees: Absolutely. Toby Jenkins: Okay. David Dees: As a matter of fact, there's an interesting story about that. We had a drag queen in the 80s. It was back when Safeway stores were around, and Safeway stores, there were several of them that were getting robbed, like armed robbery, okay? And they were looking for this beautiful blonde chick. And of course, when the Tulsa Police Department posts her picture, the gay community's like, huh, that's KC Starr, the drag queen. I kid you not, for six months, TPD thought they were looking for a black woman, or a blonde woman, sorry, before they finally figured out they were looking for a drag queen and popped her. Toby Jenkins: And did arrest her? David Dees: Oh yeah, oh yeah, they got her. Toby Jenkins: So it's 1984, there were people beginning to organize outside of just the private gay clubs. When did you hear about AIDS? David Dees: See, this is gonna be a really interesting story because it was such, it was a different time. I mean, today we've got the internet, we've got all this information. You know, back then, the internet, I don't even think when AIDS first, yeah, the internet was probably a thing, but most people didn't know about it. You know, there were bulletin boards and that sort of thing set up, like for colleges where people get information and stuff. But probably about the time, late 80s, early 90s, when AOL became a thing. With AOL coming around, that's when chat rooms were forming. And so as AIDS became more and more talked about and we knew what it was, you know, the gay plague first and the gay cancer and all this stuff, and then all of a sudden you see that it's kind of spreading in other areas. But there were chat rooms out there because I remember having a friend that was HIV positive and finally passed away in 95. But in the early 90s, I would get online and I would search through all these bulletin board rooms out there that had people living with AIDS and survivors because I kept thinking, okay, what are people doing that's working? What are people doing that's not working? You know, because I was desperate to find anything for this friend of mine. You know, like, oh, I make dandelion milk or I do this. You know, so I'm like, well, dandelions supposedly aren't good for you, but how many people are talking about doing this and how many people, you know, are doing whatever? And, you know, now we know that there's so many different strains of it, but then you didn't know that. So really what you were looking at is the people that are living, what are they doing? You know, maybe that's what's keeping them alive. Toby Jenkins: But before the internet, you would have began to hear, talked about. 22 �David Dees: You heard it on the news. That was really all you heard about. Toby Jenkins: You weren't talking about it in the clubs. David Dees: Nobody knew, really knew what it was. I mean, well, okay, when HIV first started, I was in that relationship, okay? That was about the time. So I missed probably the first four or five years of it. You know, because I was in a monotonous relationship. Then I come out and of course, you know, I'm missing friends that I had from 10 years ago, but that wasn't a big deal because everybody left Tulsa then. You went to Dallas, you went to Denver, you went to San Francisco, you went to New York, you went to Atlanta. Everybody left Tulsa, you know? So it wasn't uncommon to all of a sudden, you know, Bob was here, Bob's not here. So you just, you didn't really think about it. I tell you what was the, what really made it hit home for me was, and I think Sharon was the one that got that information for me, was I remembered, I found an old VHS tape that I'd made of the Oklahoma Quilt when it got brought to Tulsa in 92 or 93, I guess is when it was. Dennis Neill: 90 was the first, 1990 was the first. David Dees: Yes, I got it the second time. Toby Jenkins: Here was the first time it was on display, it was 1990? David Dees: Yes, at the Cox Convention Center, Civic Center. So I went through with the videotape, because as a matter of fact, I just put that on Facebook not too long ago, that video that I had transcribed, because I think I sent you a link to it or something, you'd asked me about that so y'all could have that for the record. So that, man, I'll never forget going in there and it's such a huge room and what felt like were thousands of panels to me. I mean, because they were in great big squares, you know, like what, 50 foot by 50 foot or more, maybe they're 100 by 100 foot squares, you know, with all these panels in a big square. I mean, it was just huge and there were, it felt like hundreds of them, of those big squares in there. And you're walking through and you're looking at this thing and you're like, holy shit, so that's what happened to Bob. Oh my God, there's John. Oh my God, there's Terry. I mean, it was just, it was fucking nuts. I mean, back then, cell phones didn't exist. If you called somebody long distance, long distance was expensive, so you just lost track of people, you know? And it wasn't like you had a way, you didn't even know where somebody moved and if they moved, how do you know where they moved to and how do you get their phone number? And, you know, and then God forbid, it's a dollar a minute to call somebody and talk to them. Toby Jenkins: During this time, so chronologically, I'm gonna ask this. So you're working at Zippers…. David Dees: By then, I was, let's see, Sterling's, Sterling's and then after that was Deep Elm at 61st and Memorial, which was the old Palladium. Lord, and then after that, I did go spend three or four years in a straight club. I wound up, Steve Kitchell owned the Palladium that was at Eaton Square at 61st and Memorial. Well, then 23 �Cindy Robson, who is part of the Robson family, had RCB Bank at the time, back in the day and was married or somehow part of Walmart heir. She opened that bar and called it Deep Elm for a while. Well, she wound up losing it, and that's when Steve Kitchell took me and put me in the Ocean Club, and I spent four years in the Ocean Club. Toby Jenkins: As a DJ? David Dees: Yes. Toby Jenkins: DJ and lighting. Lighting and sound? David Dees: Yes. So for four years, I was kind of out of the gay bar. Toby Jenkins: And then you went from that to David Dees: Concessions. Toby Jenkins: Concessions. David Dees: Correct. Toby Jenkins: And then you went from concessions to... David Dees: To the Silver Star. Toby Jenkins: Silver Star. And then Silver Star, you opened Majestic. David Dees: Majestic. Yeah, 23 years ago. Toby Jenkins: So I just wanted to get all that on the record. During that time, back to HIV-AIDS, did y'all begin to see the community organize and do fundraisers? David Dees: Yes. But I didn't get to be a lot of part of that because I was working at Ocean Club. But that reminds me, there was the boxer, Tommy Morrison. Toby Jenkins: Yes. David Dees: Who contracted HIV. And he was a big player at the Ocean Club. So when that happened... Toby Jenkins: He was an Oklahoma player. David Dees: Yes. That sent... Toby Jenkins: A title holder. David Dees: That sent ripples through the straight community. I mean, when I say ripples, I'm talking like six foot waves. I mean, it was insane. Toby Jenkins: And you were working in a straight club. David Dees: Yes. Yes. And I remember the wave of panic that started going through that bar. Toby Jenkins: When it began to hit what we thought was... 24 �David Dees: All of a sudden, it's in the straight community. Toby Jenkins: Heterosexual community. Yes. David Dees: Yes. David Dees: So then, by that time, when was it that I left? I left OC in 95. So in 95 is when I'm back in our community. Because it's like I told Steve. I said, man, I've been out of my element four years. I appreciate everything that I got to do. And I've lived a dream here. But I'm a fish out of water. And I needed to be back in my element. So then I stepped back into the world where all of a sudden, we're doing all these drag benefits for people that are dying. And as a matter of fact, it's really funny too. The first benefit that Majestic did right after we opened was a drag show benefit to raise money for a headstone for Caitlin Kane, Chad Burrell. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. I remember it. David Dees: Because his family wouldn't put a headstone up. And all of his friends were so distraught over that that they came to me and they said, can we do something and get a headstone? I'm like, yeah, we'll raise some money. And we raised it and we had it made. And his friends had input on what they wanted in it. And we had it placed on his grave. It's still out there. Toby Jenkins: So anything else about how AIDS impacted the community and the fundraising efforts that were going on in the clubs and things like that? David Dees: God, they were just constant. You had like, what, Red Ribbon Review. You had, I mean, everybody was doing it. It seemed like we had food pantries, I think. TOHR, I think, did a lot of stuff. Y'all had a food bank, I think, at one time that we would raise and donate canned goods for and stuff. Catholic Charities. Toby Jenkins: So you had the clubs. When do you remember the Tulsa County Health Department and the HIV testing that began to happen in the clubs? David Dees: I remember that happening with us. I don't think that that was really being done before us because I remember... Toby Jenkins: But what club do you first remember there were people there to do testing? David Dees: Okay, TOHR did STD testing for, like, syphilis and gonorrhea. Did we even have HIV tests for a long time? Dennis Neill: Well, what we did, many of us that were doing the STD testing, then we got certified with the Health Department to do HIV testing. But we did that at the OSU Clinic on Southwest Boulevard. David Dees: That's correct. You are right. You're right. I do remember that now. Dennis Neill: We did not do HIV testing in the bars. David Dees: Yeah. Yeah, we first started doing that... Toby Jenkins: TOHR didn't. 25 �David Dees: No, nobody did. Nobody did. Dennis Neill: Not that I'm aware of. David Dees: No one did. Toby Jenkins: Well when, because when I first came out that was the first thing I was told. David Dees: I think I remember we being the first ones to do. Toby Jenkins: At Star? David Dees: No, at Majestic. Toby Jenkins: No. I first met you, you were the DJ. I was at the Star. David Dees: We did not do HIV testing at the Star. Absolutely did not. Toby Jenkins: Yeah you did. Because the first time I ever walked in a gay bar I saw a table and they said what are they doing they said they're doing HIV testing and that would have been in the late 90s. David Dees: I don't remember that at all. Not at the Star. Absolutely no. Dennis Neill: Well that that could be because you know Hope testing by then was doing mobile testing and I remember going to Renegades and they were testing at Renegades and that would have been in the late, after we spun off Hope. I don't know if we did testing in the bars while Hope was part of OHR. Toby Jenkins: Well I may have it all blurred in my mind. David Dees: Yeah, the Star never did. No, I think they would do a few fundraise drag shows kind of things but no. Toby Jenkins: Okay, the reason I'm saying that is because first time I ever went into a club and you know participated in it was at the Silver Star and in my mind you know maybe Concessions I don't know. I can remember somewhere in a club I asked what that was during that period and my thought is I want to get tested but what if I find out I test positive and I'm here in a club I don't really want that all out here I want to do that privately so I went to Tulsa County Health Department to be tested. David Dees: You know we would set up a little spot upstairs that we curtained off. Toby Jenkins: Definitely at Majestic. Yes. From the day it opened it was serving the community. Because I came to you and said I need to register voters. David Dees: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: You set me up, you gave me my own little space. And we registered about 6,000 people through Majestic in a four-month period. I mean I, we would, David and them would line them up just like cattle chutes. Run them up. You had to be registered. This is when we were fighting over marriage equality and George 26 �Bush had said he was going to put the constitutional amendment. So that would have been you know 2003, 2004. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. David Dees: It took a lot of heat for doing HIV testing in the bar from a lot of people. Toby Jenkins: Oh really? David Dees: Oh absolutely. They're like well God what a downer, what are you going to do if this happens? I said you know we've got things in place but but here's the here's the deal and what I would do you know they would be set up and people would just be staring. So what I figured I had to do every time and for the longest time I did do was when they'd come and set up and we'd get people in there I'd go in and get tested and then as soon as I did it you'd have three or four other people do it. Toby Jenkins: So nobody wanted to be the first person to get tested. At this point our community didn't sometimes want to face the reality. David Dees: No absolutely not. Toby Jenkins: They didn't want to face their own mortality. They also didn't want to they didn't want to really be involved in fighting for their own liberation because those kind of things were dull and a downer and and you know I can remember trying to register people to vote and them just cussing me out. Why are you bothering this dude? I'm trying to get my buzz on you know they would get mad. David Dees: I'll say this about our community. Our community can be very interesting. I've said many times that it never ceases to amaze me. The people that scream the loudest about discrimination are oftentimes the worst about doing it and you know I've been it's been said to me many times about what are straight people doing in Majestic? Well this is a man's bar you know I've heard this stuff for years. I remember the Silver Star back in the days when we were also still half country half punk because it started out as country okay and I remember the women lined up along one wall and the men on the other side of the building just glaring at each other across the thing because the men hated that I would play waltzes because the women would waltz and they were too slow and they wanted to two-step and the women hated it because the men would two-step and slam into them. Toby Jenkins: Interesting. I just knew I loved it, it's beautiful. David Dees: Yeah, and the Silver Star really, again, was something that shaped me, that I thought, okay, if I ever get my own room, this is how it will operate. This is what I will tolerate, this is what I will not tolerate. And I've always run that room that way. Toby Jenkins: We've talked a little bit about the violence and the attacks and people being threatened and people being accosted. Do you have any recollection of, like, we've talked about people calling you names and the police harassing you. Do you have recollections of acts of violence? And I wanna lead into this to the night that you hosted the memorial for the Pulse Nightclub shooting. But prior to this, do you remember over the years, acts of violence we talked about? 27 �David Dees: When I was younger, absolutely, I remember going to the bars and what it was like. Toby Jenkins: I think you mentioned some club owner had been killed or? David Dees: That was probably a situation where somebody might have been out doing their thing and ran across somebody that was unsuspected while they were doing their thing. But there was a club owner that was, well, that was murdered out at Mohawk Park. That had a drag cabaret at, do you remember who? Okay. I just didn't wanna say his name. Toby Jenkins: If it's on public record, you can share it. David Dees: Who knows if that's public record now? I mean, because again, it's probably on microfiche somewhere, but I mean, where do you find that microfiche? And did that microfiche survive? Dennis Neill: It's on our website, our history website. David Dees: So, you know, that was- It's Mr. Tim. Dennis Neill: Well, I thought it was the partner of Mr. Tim that was murdered. David Dees: For some reason, I thought it was Mr. Tim. I think it was him, actually, butDennis Neill: And he was also winning the publisher of Another World. David Dees: Yes, I forgot about that little rag mag, yeah. Sure enough, it was Mr. Tim. It was kind of our version of Twit and the Galey back in the day. Sure was. [Editor’s note – In 1990, bar owner Tim Turner wrote a history of the early gay bar life, “A Flash from the Past,” which is in the archives and available at history.okeq.org. In the article, Tim clarifies the Mohawk murder: The Blue Haven opened November, 1948 by the 'much loved' Producer, Activist and Entrepreneur, the late M.C. Parker. M.C. Parker and Tim Warren would later cultivate and produce the largest, most spectacular Oklahoma Gay Event in history, the Miss Gay Oklahoma Pageant at the Camelot Inn. (Tim Warren, his life partner forty years his younger, was later murdered and his body discovered in Mohawk Park. The murder was never solved, as well as most gay murders in our city as I recall.] Toby Jenkins: So, about the violence, being yelled at, being threatened, were there stories of people were beat up outside of the clubs in those 80s, 70s, 80s? Speaker 4: 70s, early 80s, yeah. Maybe it picked up a little bit when AIDS first came on the scene because we all of a sudden became the plague. And this is probably where my, again, another unpopular thing that I always did. I was always kind of straight women, okay? Because when AIDS was just full blown and everybody hated the gays and you couldn't touch them and God forbid, don't eat off a fork or a spoon or something that they've touched or drink out of their glass. Straight women, I mean, we had our fag hags for lack of better words, you know? 28 �So, straight women, to me, were our first ally, really, honestly. So, I always made it a point to treat them with respect because, again, my deal was the only way that I am ever going to educate anybody about gay people is to show you that my skin is the same as yours, it feels the same as yours, it has hair like you. When I cut myself, I bleed red just like you. I am no different from who you are other than the fact of who I fall in love with. Other than that, there's no difference. Toby Jenkins: Do you remember when y'all agreed to host the memorial for the Pulse nightclub shooting? And what a difference the community, I mean, there were skyscrapers that were lit in rainbow colors to show solidarity. David Dees: You know, but here's the deal, Toby. We've always been, Tulsa has always been like that, it seems like. I mean, I noticed that, especially probably in 95, 96, towards 2000, okay, after I left Ocean Club, I didn't tell anybody where I was going. Nobody knew where I was going. I just left, abruptly left. One weekend I was there, one weekend I was not. Nobody knew. So then I'm at Concessions, and it's probably two or three months down the road, and all of a sudden I see three or four girls in there that I knew from the Ocean Club, you know? And then a week later, there were 40 or 50 women in there that I knew from the Ocean Club. You know, eight, nine months later, half the room I knew from the damn Ocean Club. You know, and then all of a sudden, with those women, two or three boyfriends or husbands. And then more, and then more. And it just, all of a sudden, Concessions was the first bar that really was a melting pot. And it was. Because it was right there on Peoria, in the middle of the strip, everything. And that's when, initially when they opened, you entered in the back door through the parking lot alley. Well, as things started growing, Kirk was like, you know what, fuck this shit, we're gonna open the front door, we're here, we're queer, and we're gonna know. And for years, the Peoria, or Brookside Merchants Association, for probably four years of the five years that bar was open, ignored that bar. That it didn't exist. They did everything, boo-ha-ha, all that crap. Never once were we ever included in anything, with anything with the Brookside Merchants Association, never. And then we did that drag queen car wash on the back parking lot. Toby Jenkins: At Concessions? David Dees: Yes. Courtney Farrell and the Brookside Divas did that drag queen car wash. And it blew up. And they did multiple drag queen car washes on that parking lot to raise money. But, you know, getting back to what you were saying with that Pulse thing. You know, it's really funny because all of the years that we've been there, not once have I ever worried about anything happening in that bar. Because it seems like the straight community loves that bar as much as the gay community loved that bar. And I always felt like people just wouldn't tolerate anything being done to it. And nothing in 23 years has ever been done to that room. It's never been vandalized. It's nothing. Toby Jenkins: Very good. Do you remember the Pulse nightclub memorial service that was there? 29 �Toby Jenkins: I can't remember if GT was the mayor or if he was a candidate. He was there. Um, he's running, I can't remember. David Dees: I'll never forget you telling, you shouting, we love you Orlando. And all those people. I mean, it was loud. I mean, there was a lot of people. Toby Jenkins: And the skyscrapers downtown. They had put rainbow things on it. David Dees: It was insane. Toby Jenkins: And the police, for every gay person, there was two police there to protect us that night when we went out to the Guthrie Green. David Dees: I remember they were on the roof of my apartment across from the club, sharpshooters up there. Toby Jenkins: I just wonder, when we came to that place to remember it, it was important that the interfaith community and corporate leaders and political figures knew that we considered that our sacred space, that it was there because people had been murdered in Orlando in a club. DavidDees: Absolutely. Just for having a good time, being themselves. They were hurting nobody. Toby Jenkins: And I just want to say for viewers, multiple times you have hosted memorial services for individuals. David Dees: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Fundraisers for people in crisis. And for causes, not just for the LGBT community, but foster care organizations, domestic violence organizations. David Dees: Because I mean...Emergency Infant Children Services, for example. We have lesbian women that have children that depend on that, you know? And I've had people go, well, that's not a gay organization. They're helping gay people. What the hell does it matter? And again, you know, it boils down to, even with things that are going on now, why are you still letting these straight people in here? You know what, dude, here's the deal. We're not gonna get anywhere by being shitty to somebody. The only thing that we can do is continue to educate people. Toby Jenkins: Can we put that on a banner? David Dees: Well, it's the truth, it is the truth. Toby Jenkins: It needs to be a logo. David Dees: Why are you trying to, you know, some bad man touched you and hurt you, okay? They're not all doing it, so why are you gonna be mean to everybody? You know, we've got a lot of people out there. Again, the only way we are ever going to get them to understand who we are is to educate them as to who we are and that we are no different. 30 �Toby Jenkins: Do you remember when we had the first parade and I believe you, I don't remember what club it was, but I remember you being at the parade and we had a float. I know Renegade's float caught on fire, but … David Dees: Yeah, I just, the thing that stands out for me is I will never, y'all were coming down 15th Street, it seemed like, and I think it was the World got a picture of that flag with everybody carrying that flag. Thing was huge and beautiful, God, it was beautiful. Toby Jenkins: And then for years, we organized over there at the Tulsa Theater, whatever it's called now. What is it called now? David Dees: Tulsa Theater, it was Brady Theater back then. Toby Jenkins: And we would organize in that parking lot and come down and right in the middle of the bike race, the bike race, and you guys had to do all of that. And then the city council told us we had to change our, look, had to change our route. David Dees: You know what's funny about that damn bike race now? As soon as that bike race is over, that crowd comes into the club and it'll catch a drag show. It's, well, you know, we, I remember, I think we were one of the first LGBT organizations that put money into a race. We'd do like a little cash prize for the blah, blah, blah, whatever, little bounty thing or something. And I remember the first time I walked up to them, I'm like, what's this y'all are doing? And they're like, well, you know, different people, like, you know, the first person that comes through that's wearing a Santa hat on, you know, blah, blah, blah. So they'd have all these different things open and I'd be like, okay, you know, 500 bucks for this person or whatever. And I'll never forget the first time I heard, you know, Club Majestic, blah, blah, blah, yeah. And people were like, what? Toby Jenkins: I want to say this for our viewers. I've always appreciated so much your support of all of the community and for everything that was happening. And the unique thing about you, David Dees, is Club Majestic, for as long as I was involved here at the Equality Center, was one of our corporate sponsors for Pride. Now, let me make sure our audience understands the difference. You would write a significant check out of your own business and personal to corporately support Pride as a cash gift. In addition to, you would let us have fundraisers there to raise money for Pride and all the different accoutrements of that. Many times, our clubs would let us have fundraisers at their clubs, and then they counted that as their sponsorship, and they wanted to be recognized as a sponsor, yet we were the ones that raised the money in their clubs. And I was happy to do that. But it alwaysDavid Dees: I get it with them. Toby Jenkins: Because you wrote a check and gave it to us and then let us have a fundraiser there too. David Dees: Yeah, a lot of these smaller clubs just didn't have the means that we had. You know, we were fortunate to be the big boy on the block. So, you know, and when you're the big boy on the block, you've got a little more responsibility and a little more, and you've got more leeway to be able to do something. 31 �Toby Jenkins: But I want it on the record. David Dees: I appreciate that. Toby Jenkins: You did more than the others. David Dees: It was never a thing that was done for recognition. Toby Jenkins: It was just, yeah. So I wonder if our panel, does anybody else have a question for David Dees? And do you have anything specifically you want to make sure we include in our interview? David Dees: Man, I had so many notes. You know, one thing that I wanted to mention too, that I think is really important to bring up in our history is, again, it goes back to back when HIV was devastating us. There's, up on North Denver, there's, I think it's a little Catholic, Hispanic church now, white. But that's where Catholic Charities had the hospice. And that's where I had a lot of friends that actually… Toby Jenkins: St. Joseph House. David Dees: Yes, yes. You know, I had many friends that wound up there because their families either couldn’t take care of them or wouldn't take care of them. And some people I know that passed away there, went there because their families didn't know. Oh, that's another thing I was going to bring up too. Do you remember when TOHR was at 36th and Peoria? Up above and Daddy's Bar and Grill was there. John Willis had that. Dennis Neill: And well, wasn't it Rick's? David Dees: Yes. Dennis Neill: And it wasn't John, it was Jim. David Dees: Jim from, he was with the Tulsa County Court. Jim and Rick, Rick was his partner. And then after they closed it, John did Daddy's there. Dennis Neill: That's right, right. Toby Jenkins: TOHR's first LGBT center. David Dees: Was that, or were you at 41st and Harvard first? Dennis Neill: Yes, the only thing at 41st and Harvard, which is actually 39th and Harvard. It wasn't really large. So we didn't have a community meeting. David Dees: That's correct. Dennis Neill: And we did not have a store there. David Dees: You all just moved the phone lines there, didn't you, from Zippers. Dennis Neill: And then we ran HIV testing out there for a while. David Dees: That's correct. Dennis Neill: And then we ran the AIDS Support Program out there. 32 �Toby Jenkins: Anything else on your notes? David Dees: Well, I definitely, you know, and you do have it on your site, but I think it's important to bring up that Tim Turner, who owned Tim's Playroom, wrote a history of, I mean, like, good Lord. I wish people could have met Gene from the Bamboo Lounge. What a character, what a character. That's all I've got about him. What a character. Everybody had to have a rite of passage. You took them in to meet Gene. Toby Jenkins: At the Bamboo. David Dees: At the Bamboo, yes. And Gene would, we would be like, Gene, John's never been here before. You need to make him a pair of jeans. And oh, Lord. He, boy, he was a flamboyant little queen. Like, first thing, here's what I remember about the Bamboo, okay? I remember walking to the Bamboo and like, what a beautiful aquarium behind the bar with, I've never seen so many dicks in my life in an aquarium. They had dicks that blew air bubbles and dicks that the fish were eating algae off of it. I mean, there were penises everywhere in that aquarium. They probably even had a penis-shaped fish that you just didn't know was in there because you were too busy looking at all the penises in the aquarium. Lord have mercy. But man, what an incredible man he was. He was such, such a neat man. Toby Jenkins: It was such a loss when that club closed. David Dees: Absolutely. Toby Jenkins: Because it had the distinction of being one of the longest clubs around. And we tried, at the time, the present administration, or the previous administration of Obama, they were beginning, the National Park Service was looking for historical places to register on the historical registry. And we were trying to work to get Bamboo included in that. And then it closed. David Dees: You know, the, what was it, another thing that, you know, our bars, too, were so diverse back then. You had your gay men's bar, you had the cruise bar, you had the dance club, the women had their bar. You know, so it was like, I remember, the Zebra Lounge was pretty much down about, what, sixth to seventh on Main. It was the block north of Harrington's, when Harrington's was there. You know, that was where your older clientele hung out. You know, Taj Mahal, of course, was your little hustler bar. Lord have mercy. We had so many different, unique things. You know, TNT's, how long did TNT's go on for? They were a good 20 years. Toby Jenkins: Oh, longer than that. David Dees: Easy. You know, I remember the Club, when it was on Memorial, back in the day. I'll never forget. Jane Ann Earl. Lord, I was, okay, I was working at a bank at the time. I'd just gotten, I was a bank teller for like two or three years, and I'll never forget. You know, she was a larger than life lesbian woman, okay? I mean, and she was a big woman, and she drove a Pontiac Bonneville, big old tank car, and she'd come flying that thing, and I always, here's what I remember about her. On her dash of her car, she had like a leopard print dash cover, and she was just rough and tough. I mean, she was tough, and I always loved her, and she would always look at me, she'd be like, hi, baby. Oh, Lord, she was such a neat lady, Jane Ann Earl. I need to go try to look that name up. She'd have to be dead by now. 33 �Toby Jenkins: The helpful thing from this interview is that we now know that Patty was your high school friend. And rescued you in the street, made you come back in with wanting to get her interviewed. Anything else on your notes? David Dees: And she may or may not remember that, but I was just like, she was like, David Dees, David Dees, I'm Patty Murray, we went to high school together. Don't hurt me. Toby Jenkins: Anything else on your notes that you want to make sure we include? And then I would like if Mary or Dennis have a question for you. David Dees: Oh, absolutely. Let's see. Oh, the Camelot Inn, Trudy Tyler, our first Miss Gay Oklahoma, U.S. of A. She was crowned there. Toby Jenkins: Very good. And that would, do you remember the year? David Dees: I want to say 75, I think. Toby Jenkins: And I've been told, Dennis may know from the archives, because I think it's included in our archives, and it was covered by the media. They would have people protest outside that the Camelot was hosting the pageant. David Dees: Absolutely, absolutely. Toby Jenkins: And the Camelot was a bougie place in those days. David Dees: Yes, it was, absolutely, very much so. And I don't remember if she wrote for the World or the Tribune, but Joanne Gordon. I mean, that lady, and I think I furnished y'all with copies of that, too, where she's like, Joanne discovers the Fruit Loop, and she wrote a whole article, because she would, her and her husband, they'd write editorial, you know, just a little commentary every day, editorial-type thing. Toby Jenkins: And for our audience, what was the Fruit Loop? David Dees: Oh, Lord, the Fruit Loop was, okay, let's see. We go down to 6th Street, okay, so it started at 9th Street, go down past Holy Family Cathedral to 6th Street, then we would head east on 6th Street to Main, and then we'd come up Main, go past Kathy's, 8th and 9th on Main, and then turn right at the apartment complex that was there, and go back to Boulder. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, so these were all one-way streets in downtown Tulsa. David Dees: Yes. Toby Jenkins: And it was like a cruising place where people could… David Dees: Hundreds of people cruising, and it was every night of the week, but Friday and Saturday night, you'd have 100 cars on that parking lot across from Holy Family Cathedral until the cops would run us off. Toby Jenkins: I may know a little bit about it, or maybe not, but it was very popular. David Dees: I know a lot about it. 34 �Toby Jenkins: All right, our panel, does anybody else have a question for David Dees? We've got a person who was there and saw it happen. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: When did the Fruit Loop's driving end? David Dees: 80s, probably, yeah. Because all the bars started moving out of the downtown area. Because for the longest time, they were all downtown. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: As a bar owner, what do you think makes you be so benevolent to the community and take it upon yourself to assist the community in so many ways as you have over the years, rather than just sit back and rake in the money and not care about who you're taking it from? David Dees: Probably being as old as I am and experienced. Honestly, I'm like I said, it all goes back to that deal with my mom. Honestly, with me was she? She just showed me honestly what unconditional love was, what come, what compassion was, and I think I kind of learned: you learn what you will put up with and you learn what you will not put up with. You know, and so then you have to learn how to apply that evenly across the board, and I've always I've, in running that club, it's always been with me, what's fair is fair, and if it's fair for you, then it's fair for you. It's not, it's just not ever been one segment was treated better than another segment. It can't be that way. And it's also been an educational tool, like I've said many times. You know, I I don't want to feel like somebody, oh, you have that little Trump derangement syndrome where I say it's like a ministry. But it kind of was. It was a ministry in a way, because it was a tool to teach people who we were. Again, it was like: you know, look, I have hair on my arm, so do you? So do you? Look, I believe red, so do you. You know I love, so do you. Now, who I love may be different from who you love, but you know that was that was always….just the whole point was: you know we're here, you know what you're, welcome. Come on in, learn about us, have fun with us. We'll have fun with you. Toby Jenkins: So it'd be. To recap, it would be your mother's influence made you look out for others, and not just. David Dees: I think absolutely that that moment with my mom was probably one of the most incredibly pivotal moments in my life. It was. It was a huge life lesson. It's a life lesson I never forgot. David Dees: Dennis, do you have a question for our guests today. Dennis Neill: Not at this time, thank you. Toby Jenkins: Okay, I know that you are maybe not as visible at the club. Do you want to acknowledge the people that run the place? David Dees: Yes, I'm definitely not. I mean, I'm a couple years from 70, so I'm definitely not as up to being up there. I definitely can't race up down the stairs like I used to. As far as hands-on, I'm still very much hands-on behind the scenes I can. I can assure people that I've got people in place, that they're- they're still doing what it is I want done and running it how I want done and a lot of the things that are in place- the, the security that's in place. That's how I want it done and I want it very 35 �visible. I want people to know that, you know we're very well aware of what's going on out there. Toby Jenkins: And the manager today is Chris Shoaf. David Dees: Chris has run that for me technically for probably easily ten years, but he was also a big part even before then. Toby Jenkins: And he would be known to our viewers because of his activism, work and his being a strong advocate. David Dees: Absolutely, I I think I think people don't really realize the amount of time and the and the things that you know, Chris… Chris can be very vocal sometimes and I think some people are like, oh, it's a little dramatic. But I can promise you, if there's something going on, he's the one that's out there barking. He's the dog out in the yard in the middle of the night barking to let you know that, hey, something's going on. Maybe you ought to get up right. Toby Jenkins: And that is the manager at the Majestic. I know another thing I want to before we finish. So in a minute I'm going to ask you what we ask all of our guests: do you have a message for the future, for young people or the people who come after us? So in a minute I'm going to ask you for that. But I wanted you to tell a little bit about I know you live in a house that's on wheels and live in a travel trailer motor home, and I know you're a part of a group of LGBT people that get together. Toby Jenkins: Yes, what's the name of that group? David Dees: There's a couple now. There's one that's based out of Oklahoma City: Pride in the Pines LGBT Camping, and then the greater Tulsa LGBT Camping. It was based, you know, on eastern Oklahoma and then, of course, there's a lot of intermingling with the members in each group. Toby Jenkins: And kind of what is its focus. David Dees: You get together, just get together, hang out, meet, meet, and I mean it's just absolutely, yeah, absolutely, it's fun, that's I used to run, Dennis and John. Their first time I ran into them camping was at Natural Falls, I believe. Toby Jenkins: Very good. So as we finish our time together, I'm going to ask you: do you have a message for the future, for those that come after us? Is there something you want to say? David Dees: Know your worth, absolutely know your worth. Don't settle for anything less you are. I feel like I've tried to lead life by the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but don't expect them to do unto you, or you're probably going to be sorely disappointed. But you always, always, always, lead by example, and I get it. Sometimes it's hard and sometimes you turn the cheek, sometimes you get a few teeth knocked out, but it's just how…It's how you've got to do it. It reminds me of the days of Act Up, you know, and I've heard it applied to the riots that went on with George Floyd and all this. I, you know, and I'm somebody said: 36 �well, I just don't agree with doing this and doing that. Well, I remember with Act Up, I didn't used to like some of the things that act up did. I know why they did it, because sometimes you have to go to that extreme to make people stop and go whoa and and look at things and think. Toby Jenkins: And Act Up would have been an activist group that was very visible and involved in the 80s and some of their protests were pretty dramatic, everything from sprinkling the ashes the cremated remains of their lovers on the lawn of the White House, and then they had protests at the cathedrals because of their stand on condemning condom use. David Dees: Absolutely and like, like I said, some of them at the time. Some of these things seem really extreme but again, sometimes you have to stop, step outside of the box, look at what's real. What's going on? What, what is, what is the intent here? Sometimes it looks malice, but maybe it's not. Toby Jenkins: Our time today has been with David Dees. Any closing words, sir, before we finish our time together? David Dees: No, I'm happy. I touched on a lot of things that were important, I think. And there's there's a lot of history that a lot of people don't know about. Toby Jenkins: So when are you going to run for an elected office> David Dees: Absolutely never. Toby Jenkins: Well, I think you've got some campaign slogans. David Dees: I intend to live out my the rest of my years. That's another thing that people need to remember. Live your life happy. That's it. In the grand scheme of things, nothing else matters. Water off a duck's back Toby Jenkins: You've been listening to David Dees David Dees: Preach the gospel. Toby Jenkins: Here in the Joe and Nancy McDonald Rainbow Library in the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center, the headquarters of Oklahomans for Equality and he is a part of our history project. Thank you. Addendum: Given David’s initial work at Zippers, the editor has added the following for the Zippers Facebook page established in 2016 by a group of former patrons of the bar: ABOUT ZIPPERS In 1975, construction began on a 6,023 square foot building on 33rd Street, just west of South Yale Avenue in Tulsa, OK. Completed early in 1976, it originally opened as Casino Disco, a private gambling and dancing club that did not remain open for long. An upscale discotheque named Casablanca followed, but it too was short lived, and was followed by yet another club named Sweetwater Station, which failed to develop a following and also closed in a matter of months. By 1978, the building was just a 37 �little over two years old and had been home to three failed ventures--but that was about to change. In the Fall of 1978, John Willis with the help of an investor from a prominent Tulsa family opened Zippers Electric Circus, a club that catered to a mostly gay clientele, although everyone was welcome. Prior to Zippers, Willis was doing sound work at the Old Plantation, another gay club near 51st and Yale, which shared a parking lot with a Steak and Ale Restaurant. Willis used his knowledge and experience to ensure that the sound system at Zippers would be the finest in the area at the time, and it was said to be the best west of the Mississippi River. Zippers had an intimate atmosphere, and reliably packed in patrons night after night. Theme parties such as Fantasy in Red, Fantasy in Black, and Hollywood Nights attracted even larger crowds, and from time to time entertainers such as Sylvester and Pamala Stanley appeared in the club. Zippers was a trend setter by establishing shared men's and women's rest rooms, which often surprised first time visitors. Zippers was a big hit, and pulled in visitors from other states. It was not unusual to see tags from five or more states on cars in the parking lot. After 10 years, Willis opened a new club named Strokes in the Brookside area of Tulsa, and closed Zippers, ending an era that had to be experienced to be understood, and one that created many friendships and fond memories for everyone fortunate enough to have been a part of it. John Willis passed away in 1993, but he and the establishment he envisioned and created lives on today in the memories of many. This group is dedicated to John Willis, the staff at Zippers who greeted all who entered, poured their drinks, mixed the music, cleaned up the mess, and to everyone who came to dance, drink, and made Zippers a part of their lives from 1978 to 1987. 38 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2026] David Dees Interview Subject The topic of the resource Donald Dees Oral History Project Interview from April 21, 2026 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource David Dees, Toby Jenkins, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 21, 2026 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived This interview with David Dees offers a deep dive into the history of LGBTQ+ community life in Tulsa, including early club culture, personal experiences with family acceptance, and the evolution of Pride events. It provides valuable insights into the challenges and resilience of the community over decades. Join us for an in-depth interview with David Dees as he shares his experiences and insights from decades of activism, community organizing, and the history of LGBTQ+ life in Tulsa. Discover stories of community resilience, the fight against AIDS, and the importance of education and inclusion. 2026 AIDS AIDS/HIV David Dees Dennis Neill Dennis R. Neill HIV/AIDs interview LGBT history OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Pride Toby Jenkins transcript video https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/21d02a6d92c0f1bbc38aeacb4b197e21.mp4 d3d143b8975e231e89aee433ebbabac8 https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/7fda3ee82db9d17466e3443f6b5400c5.pdf 2acf3458bfdcb44db5b39b13eba43da3 PDF Text Text �������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2003] Dennis Neill Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 10, 2003 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on December 10, 2003. Dennis discusses his early life growing up in Ponca City, Oklahoma, experiences at Oklahoma State University and the University of Texas Law School. In 1977, he moved to Tulsa to begin his legal career and then joining the Schusterman family in their oil and gas business. As a co-founder of the Tulsa Chapter of Oklahomans for Human Rights, which in 1985 became Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights and then in 2006 Oklahomans for Equality, he reviews the early years of the organization and involvement with other civic activities and the beginnings of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Tulsa and the community response. Subject The topic of the resource Dennis Neill Oral History Project Interview from December 10, 2003 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dennis Neill, Laura Belmonte 2003 AIDS AIDS/HIV Dennis Neill HIV/AIDs interview Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte OkEq OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (OSU) Oklahomans for Equality Oklahomans for Equality (OKEQ) oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript OSU TOHR transcript Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) University of Texas University of Texas Law School video Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2020] Donald Fruechting Interview Subject The topic of the resource Donald Fruechting Oral History Project Interview from November 20, 2020 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Morgan Allen on November 20, 2020. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong><strong> </strong>Donald discusses his early life, family background, military service, personal relationships, and experiences living with HIV. Donald shares insights into his identity as a gay man, the challenges he faced, and the importance of community and family support. He reflects on his journey through love, loss, and spirituality, emphasizing the blessings he has received throughout his life. Donald was born on July 4th, 1938 in rural Owasso, Oklahoma and passed on August 21, 2021 in Tulsa. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Donald Fruechting, Morgan Allen, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 20, 2020 2020 AIDS/HIV available at Center Donald Fruechting HIV HIV/AIDs interview Morgan Allen OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript transcript video Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2019] Dwight Kealiher Interview Subject The topic of the resource Dwight Kealiher OSU Diverse Sexuality and Gender in Oklahoma Oral History Project Interview from February 13, 2019 Description An account of the resource Dwight was interviewed on February 13, 2019, by Oklahoma State University as part of its Diverse Sexuality and Gender Oral History Project. Dwight discusses his early life, experiences at Oklahoma State University (the Oklahoma A&amp;M College) in the 1950s, his marriage and family and later coming out. As a CPA in Tulsa, he reviews his long-time association with Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (now Oklahomans for Equality,) Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN), Tulsa Cares and Health Outreach Prevention Education (HOPE). Dwight was born on August 15, 1937, in Checotah, Oklahoma and passed on August 15, 2024. <strong>A copy of the transcript is on file in the History Project Archives at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center.</strong> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dwight Kealiher, Angus Henderson, Allison Richmond, Micki White, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 13, 2019 2019 Allison Richmond Angus Henderson available at Center Diverse Sexuality and Gender in Oklahoma Oral History Project Dwight Kealiher H.O.P.E. Health Outreach Prevention and Education (H.O.P.E.) HOPE interview Micki White Oklahoma Oral History Research Program Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (OSU) Oklahoma State University Archives oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript OSU OSU Archives OSU Diverse Sexuality and Gender in Oklahoma Oral History Project RAIN Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN) TOHR transcript Tulsa CARES Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2004] Dwight Kealiher Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource July 25, 2004 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on July 25, 2004. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong> Dwight Kealiher was born in Tulsa and lived in Poteau, Sallisaw, Sulphur, Ada, and Checotah. He grew up in a Southern Baptist family, living a pretty typical small-town life. 6 After graduating from Checotah High School, he enrolled at Oklahoma State University (then, Oklahoma A&amp;M College) in 1955 as a business major. After college, he married a girl he knew from Checotah, staying married for twenty years and having three sons. During that time, however, Dwight also fully recognized that he was gay. Also after college, he spent six months, active duty, at Fort Leonard Wood in the National Guard. He then moved to Tulsa where he fulfilled the remaining five and a half years in the Reserves of his six-year commitment and got a job with a CPA firm. He took some accounting classes at University of Tulsa and later passed the CPA exam, and in 1989, he ventured out on his own, opening his own office in Tulsa. Over the years, he’s been active in local LGBTQ+ support groups such as Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (now Oklahomans for Equality), Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN), Tulsa Cares, and Health Outreach Prevention Education (HOPE), along with being a successful businessman. Subject The topic of the resource Dwight Kealiher Oral History Project Interview from July 25, 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dwight Kealiher, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2004 available at Center Dwight Kealiher H.O.P.E. Health Outreach Prevention and Education (H.O.P.E.) HOPE interview Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (OSU) oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript OSU RAIN Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN) TOHR transcript TU Tulsa CARES Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) University of Tulsa video https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/80148d6fd82c4fb1120d20b177a365f9.pdf 225665e18ebba2395a66e636d13cdc2b PDF Text Text Oklahomans for Equality Oral History Interview with Dr. Frances Fae Haas Interview Conducted by Toby Jenkins Date: May 5, 2026 Transcribed and Edited By: Mary Bishop-Baldwin using Reduct.Video AI Restrictions: Interviewee requested: N/A Oklahomans for Equality History Project 621 E. 4th Street Tulsa, OK. 74120 918.743.4297 historyproject@okeq.org 1 �About Dr. Haas: Summary In this in-depth interview, Dr. Frances Haas shares her remarkable journey from a small-town girl to a pioneering physician serving the LGBTQ community, including HIV/AIDS patients and transgender individuals. She discusses her career, medical insights, advocacy, and the evolving landscape of gender-af rming care. Keywords LGBTQ healthcare, HIV/AIDS, transgender medicine, medical advocacy, Oklahoma healthcare, gender-af rming care, HIV research, medical history, community activism Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Dr. Frances Haas 01:32 Early Life and Education 05:23 Career Beginnings in Nursing 09:19 Journey to Medical School 11:26 First Encounters with HIV Patients 14:07 Stigma and Challenges in HIV Care 15:24 Medical School and Specialization 19:10 Establishing an HIV Practice 21:12 Advancements in HIV Treatment 23:12 Caring for Transgender Patients 26:21 Evolving Patient Demographics 28:34 Insurance Challenges in Transgender Care 30:36 The Journey to Gender Af rming Care fi fi fi 2 �32:59 Navigating Treatment for Minors 36:48 Understanding Transgender Rights and Public Perception 40:07 The Intersection of HIV and Transgender Health 44:07 Community Engagement and Activism 47:47 Ethics of HIV Disclosure 51:05 The Future of HIV Treatment and Education 56:00 Personal Re ections and Family Dynamics 01:03:02 Messages for Future Generations Dr. Frances Haas Oral History Interview May 5, 2026 Toby Jenkins: Thank you for joining us today. It is May 5th, 2026, here at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center, the headquarters of Oklahomans for Equality, and we are in the Nancy and Joe McDonald Rainbow Library, and you're here for a History Project interview. Today our special guest is Frances Haas. Could you give us your name – your full name? Dr. Frances Haas: Frances Fae Haas. Toby Jenkins: Frances Fae Haas. Never knew the middle name. I love it. And she will be with us today. We refer to her as Dr. Haas or Miracle Worker, but we also have Dennis Neill, the founder of Oklahomans for Equality, with us today, and Mary Bishop-Baldwin here, a part of the History Archives, and I'm Toby Jenkins conducting the interview. Frances, or Dr. Haas, I'm going to call you Dr. Haas because that's the thing I'm most comfortable with, if that's all right? Dr. Frances Haas: That's ne, either one. Toby Jenkins: So I want to know, we're going to talk about your career in medicine and serving speci cally the LGBTQ community, but I want to nd out a little bit about, you know, how you became Frances Haas, Dr. Frances Haas. Where were you born? Dr. Frances Haas: I was born in Evansville, Indiana. I'm from the little town of Boonville, Indiana, in the southwest corner of Indiana. Toby Jenkins: And was that a big metropolis, or was that a little bitty town? Dr. Frances Haas: Evansville is a small city. Boonville is about 5-6,000 people. Toby Jenkins: And what was your family like? I mean, what did your father do? Dr. Frances Haas: My father was a mechanic. My mother was a telephone operator. I have an older half-sister, and I have a younger full sister. Toby Jenkins: All right. And did you graduate from there? fi fi fl fi 3 �Toby Jenkins: Where at in western Missouri? Dr. Frances Haas: Milo is the name of the little town, but it's kind of close to Nevada and Eldorado Springs. I graduated from Eldorado Springs. Toby Jenkins: Well, that's beautiful country. I know that well. Just curious, what were some of the things that you were interested in when you were a kid or a teenager? Dr. Frances Haas: When I was a kid, I liked a lot of crafts. I was not a girl who played with dolls. You know, I liked plants. I mean, I planted beans out of mom's cupboard and everything. I experimented on plants. I had a mother-in-law's tongue, and I did surgery on it. But they thought I'd probably be something like a botanist or something. And then when we moved to the farm in Missouri, I discovered I liked cows. And so my major when I went off to college was pre-ag. Toby Jenkins: So when you were in high school, were you real good in math and science? I mean, did you have an aptitude for that? Dr. Frances Haas: I was good in the rst two years. You know, I had two years of algebra, two years of Latin, and I did well in school. But it was a bad home life. My rst stepfather was very abusive. There was sexual abuse involved. And so I switched to business. It was just a chaotic, chaotic life. Toby Jenkins: And so you went off to—you graduated from— Dr. Frances Haas: Eldorado Springs High School. Toby Jenkins: And then where did you go to college? Dr. Frances Haas: I went to Missouri Southern in Joplin in pre-ag. My mother picked where I would go. I didn't have any choice in the matter. And after one year of college, I went home for the summer. My rst stepfather was an alcoholic. He'd gotten pretty violent and all. Actually, my little sister and I got kicked out at 18. She was 17. And so we went down to Joplin, stayed at the YWCA. And I got myself a job as a nurse aide in the nursing home. And she got a job at the stockyard in the restaurant as a waitress. Igot myself enrolled in nursing school because I thought a nurse aide—an RN, was a nurse aide who made more money. And then— Toby Jenkins: And that was at school there? Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, and got my little sister enrolled. Our father had died when I was 15, so we had some Social Security and VA coming in. It was $146 or less during the period, but I made it through college on that. Missouri Southern was one of the 10 cheapest universities in the United States. Toby Jenkins: And so what years would this have been? fi fi 4 fi fi Dr. Frances Haas: No. My father was a binge alcoholic, and my mom divorced him when I was a freshman in high school and remarried her rst husband, who was my half-sister's father. We moved to western Missouri to a farm. �Dr. Frances Haas: Let's see, I started college in 1969, and then 1970 to 1972, I have an associate of science degree in nursing in ’72. Then I started work as a nurse at the osteopathic hospital in Joplin, Oak Hill. They had medical students start coming in. I never dreamed of being a doctor, never, ever, ever. I was afraid of the doctors, but the medical students were only a few years older than me, and I wasn't afraid of them. So that's when I decided, well, I want to be a doctor, and started taking the pre-med subjects. At that time, a lot of times, I was the only RN in the hospital, and there were no doctors there, so you were just kind of, it was about 100 beds. We're talking about the early ’70s. Toby Jenkins: Okay, and so this would have been at the osteopathic hospital? Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, in Joplin. Toby Jenkins: And is that where you went to medical school for your degree, was osteopath college? Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, yeah. I took my pre-med subjects there and was interviewing, I interviewed here at OSU medical school program and in an osteopathic school in West Virginia, but I wasn't getting any encouragement. My mother was very much against me going to medical school because she thought that they would force her to pay for it. My brother-in-law, who was a psychiatrist, didn't encourage me to go. I found out later, the reason was that he realized with my personality, my patients would be richer than me, and he's probably right. But anyhow, he was very supportive later. So I gave up the dream, and I moved back to Indiana. That was in 1979. I worked at the local hospital there, and I was assistant director of nursing, an ICU head nurse, and did medical staff quality assurance and utilization review. I told a physician friend who was an osteopath that the decision I regretted most in life was not going to medical school and I was too old, and he says, “I don't think you're too old.” He took me back to his of ce, got me out the American Osteopathic Association Directory, and showed me where they had the schools and all. So I started applying. I don't even have a bachelor's degree. I have an associate degree in science. So I started applying. I had excellent references, even one from the nun head of our hospital. My grades were – some of them weren't so good, and some of them were superb, depending on how much I was partying when I was younger, because I did like to party. I was out of pre-med by about 10 years, and so I applied, and you get turned down and everything. It's discouraging, but I kept applying. And I was at Mass one Sunday, and we were standing up doing the responses that they do in the Catholic Church. I remember the sun shining in, and God said, “Take care of people with HIV.” And that's where it came from. Toby Jenkins: Wow. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, and I just knew at that point, I'm gonna get in. Just keep trying, and whatever you do, help people with HIV. So then I did get in. I was an alternate; I almost didn't get to go. I missed all of orientation. Toby Jenkins: And what year would that have been? Dr. Frances Haas: 1991. Toby Jenkins: 1991. fi 5 �Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. I missed all of orientation, because they called when I had been down in Mexico visiting. I had a foreign exchange student. I'd been down in Mexico visiting them, and came back on Amtrak, and got home about eight in the morning. That afternoon, I got a telephone call from Kansas City University, which is the one I wanted to go to the most. I'd had an interview there, I was an alternate. But I didn't think I was gonna get to go, because it was time for school to start. They said, “We have an opening. Can you come?” And I said, “Yes.” And I said, “When do you want me there?” They said as soon as you can get here. So that was a Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday, I went in and quit my job. Actually, the university had called my work, trying to nd me, because they were trying to get ahold of me, and they couldn't, so they called my place of employment. So theyToby Jenkins: And that was in Indiana? Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, so they all knew. They got together a going-away party for me, bought me an otoscope and a ophthalmoscope and everything. Then I had to go to Evansville to get a pair of glasses, because I'd lost mine on the trip, and I was blind as a bat, and then pack my car. Thursday I drove 500 miles to Kansas City. Friday I enrolled at the school and had my physical in the dean's of ce and started school on Monday. Toby Jenkins: Wow. Dr. Frances Haas: And it was hard that rst year. I remember I struggled. Toby Jenkins: And how old were you? Dr. Frances Haas: I was 39 when I was accepted, and I wasn't even the oldest woman. Toby Jenkins: And that would have been 1991? Dr. Frances Haas: Uh-huh, yeah. Toby Jenkins: And were you partnered at this time? Were you married? Dr. Frances Haas: No, no. Toby Jenkins: So you were single. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, yeah. Toby Jenkins: And you had been working in Indiana. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: In nursing. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: And so you'd had this religious experience where you felt like you were called to do this. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. fi fi fi 6 �Dr. Frances Haas: I think my rst exposure to an HIV patient was when I worked for about six months out at Stanford University in California. And there was a young man brought in to our unit. It was a med-surg unit. And they said he was from San Francisco and that he was gay. I remember him as being very thin, and he had lymphoma of the brain. This was probably about 1975, 1976. This is before HIV was there. When I was out at Stanford, we used double doses of antibiotics. If it said every six hours, we were giving it every four on these patients that were being transferred in. But that one young man I'm pretty sure had HIV. It just was not recognized at that point. At that point, we didn't use gloves. I've had so many needle points – needle sticks – as a nurse that I can't – I lost count. So there but for the grace of God go I. But I can remember that young man and him dying and all with brain lymphoma. Toby Jenkins: So when did you begin to, like as a nurse, there in your work in Indiana. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: You lived, you were right in the middle of nursing. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: When HIV and AIDS had made it to the middle of the heartland. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. There was a patient brought into our little hospital. We weren't a big hospital. And it was the son of our unit clerk. Actually at one time, he'd been my orderly and then he'd gone off to the military and come back. He had a respiratory illness and there was talk going around. This was in the ’80s. So there was a lot of fear and everything. And I remember I did medical staff quality assurance at the time and the respiratory therapist was pushing me to have him checked for PCP pneumonia. I pushed back against it because he was getting treatment for it. I know the physician doing it didn't want that de nite diagnosis out there but he was treating appropriately for it. Because you're in a small town, and there is stigma. His mom worked there and all. I don't know if that young man is still alive or not. But that was probably the rst known HIV patient I took care of. He came in later, and we learned he had HIV. Toby Jenkins: So during the late ’80s, before you went into medical school, and you were working in hospital settings, a clinic, did you see a lot of stigma associated with people who possibly were HIV positive? Dr. Frances Haas: Some. Some. Actually, our hospital administrator from the Daughters of Charity, a little nun, she suggested – the little hospital was having problems nancially – and she suggested making the top oor into an HIV unit. There was some ack about that. What it turned out to be was an alcohol detox rehab unit. They screamed about that because the obstetric unit was up on the third oor. The fear was those druggies are going to go in and kill the babies, which of fi fl fi fi fl 7 fi fl Toby Jenkins: And had you already as a nurse in the hospitals there been working with HIV patients? �course didn't happen. But I always thought this little nun was ahead of her time. She was actually one of my references for medical school. Toby Jenkins: So you go to medical school in Kansas City, and did you specialize in infectious diseases? Dr. Frances Haas: No. I did medical school, and then I was going to do my internship in Joplin, because my mentor was there. My mentor is a cardiologist, and he trained me as a nurse. He trained me as an ICU nurse, and he did training of me as a medical student. But they had a hostile merger going on with Freeman Hospital. The FTC got called in on that, and the head of the program said this is probably not a good place for you to get an education. What about Tulsa? I said that's ne. Well, it turned out that the rst medical student I ever met, Dan Fieker, was the head of Tulsa Regional Medical Center. I didn't interview or anything, just called. He remembered me, and I was accepted in. Toby Jenkins: So what year did you move to Tulsa? Dr. Frances Haas: 1995. I did a year internship, because I didn't know if I wanted to do internal medicine, family medicine, or surgery. And so during that year, Dr. Tom Stees was head of the internal medicine program. I really liked him, even though he's tough as hell. But I mean, if you're going to go to school and you're going to pay that kind of money and all, you want the best. And you don't want an easy program; you want a hard program. And so I decided to do internal medicine. Toby Jenkins: And that would have been through OSU? Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, that was from ’96 to ’99. Toby Jenkins: And OSU hospital would have been called Tulsa Regional Medical Center. Dr. Frances Haas: And then Dr. Beal had the – what's the special program for HIV – it's the Ryan White program. They had the funding for that, but OSU got the program. Toby Jenkins: And what year would that have been? Dr. Frances Haas: ’96. And I can remember, I was so upset, because I was so excited, because I knew I wanted to do HIV at that time. Toby Jenkins: Well, yeah, you'd heard from God. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. And they were going to have residents, and then I can remember Dr. Stees saying that they’d decided the rst-year internal medicine residents couldn't do it. I remember I'd let out a profanity in front of him. I still remember the stunned look on his face. But then, so the second and third year I did the clinic. I was the only resident who liked the HIV clinic. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Were there several coming in, in Tulsa? Dr. Frances Haas: Several? Toby Jenkins: In the clinic? Were there several patients? fi fi fi 8 �Toby Jenkins: And this would have been, through what we call today the OSU Clinic, it would have been – I can't remember what it was called in those early days. Dr. Frances Haas: The Ryan White Clinic. Toby Jenkins: Oh, it was called, okay. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. And I guess the part I didn't like about it was people didn't know a lot. And that “ the best regimen was Crixivan-Combivir”. Well, Crixivan, I mean, yeah, it may be the best medicine, but it's hell to take. It was every eight hours on an empty stomach. You know patients are skipping doses. It gave you nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. It sucked as a regimen, even though it's “the best.” So that was a problem. And then Dr. Baker, who was in charge of the Ryan White Clinic, told me that Dr. (Jeffrey) Beal was wanting to move to Florida, and his clinic was up for sale. So that's how that came about. Toby Jenkins: I did not know that. So you purchased his practice. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. And so he had the old timers in there. And that's when I learned that it may not be the best regimen, but you get a regimen that patient will take faithfully. That's the most important thing is they take it consistently. Because we had what we called Florida-itis: They'd go on vacation, they'd conveniently forget their medicine because, by God, it made them feel like shit. And so you learn to nesse some of the meds so the patients will take them faithfully. Toby Jenkins: Now this medication that you were giving in this time, did it suppress the HIV virus? Or was this prior to the actual effective regimens that we found? Dr. Frances Haas: It suppressed the virus, but you had the side effects, and it made it dif cult to take. Toby Jenkins: And so when you got your practice, they had found the medication that kept people alive. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, Dr. Beal was doing studies, and I never ever thought that I would be doing medical studies, but that was part of the practice I bought. And so I learned to do those, and you got used to nessing, working with meds. It also brought in meds to the Midwest that were not available, except to those on the East Coast, West Coast, and Florida. Toby Jenkins: Because you were doing the research. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, yeah. So they came in two, three years earlier than would have been expected, and that led to some of these old-timers still out there because they got started on those regimens. Toby Jenkins: So when you're referring to old-timers, you're referring to lifers who lived with the virus. Dr. Frances Haas: 70s and 80s, yeah, that affected them. fi 9 fi fi Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. �Toby Jenkins: All right, thank you. And that would have been what year that you started doing the research? Dr. Frances Haas: I started in Dr. Beal's practice July 1999, and then he left January 1st, 2000. Toby Jenkins: So the medication that is helping the patients live and suppress the virus, did you begin to see a dramatic drop in deaths? Dr. Frances Haas: Over the years, yeah. You still, I found that you could suppress the HIV virus, but if you had hepatitis C, that went and killed them. So I started doing hepatitis C studies. With every death I tried to learn on. Like a patient that had pneumococcal pneumonia: I gave them the vaccine. Why didn't it protect them? Well, they got the vaccine when their T-cell count was less than 200. So I found that when I got their T-cell count above 200, I repeat that vaccine because their body was unable to react to the vaccine initially. I hated losing patients, but you're going to, but it's like, try to learn. Toby Jenkins: So was your practice mostly infectious disease, or did you, were you a –? Dr. Frances Haas: It's a mix. Toby Jenkins: You were a general physician. So you were treating all the other stuff. Dr. Frances Haas: I'm an internal medicine physician who has a special interest in hepatitis C and HIV, HIV rst. Then hepatitis C. The transgender population, I didn't know I was getting into that. I had had no training in it, though we did have a, we were going to have a noontime meeting in med school with somebody who was transgendered, but it got canceled, so I never got to do that. So I can still remember the rst transgender patient that Dr. Beal introduced me to and all. And then –. Toby Jenkins: And what year was that? Dr. Frances Haas: 1999. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Dr. Frances Haas: And I'm Facebook friends with her. And you probably know her. Toby Jenkins: Well, I have a question. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: On your patient load, about how many people in Tulsa at that time that you had a part of your practice, about how many patients did you have who were living with HIV/AIDS? Dr. Frances Haas: You know, I don't know. Toby Jenkins: Okay. fi fi 10 �Toby Jenkins: Yeah, because, I can remember when I got heavily involved here at the Equality Center, one of the persistent phone calls we had on the helpline, and just people reaching out to us, people were, it was dif cult to nd a doctor. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, yeah. Toby Jenkins: Who would, and usually it was from somebody who had just recently tested HIV positive, or, anyway, they were, that was a consistent call. And you were one of the few doctors we had that was still taking patients. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, yeah. And a problem with the Ryan White Clinic at that time was they had a long wait of time to get in. Those people were scared. So, you know, they, I got a lot of those patients who –. Toby Jenkins: So they were scared because they'd been recently diagnosed? Dr. Frances Haas: Diagnosed, yeah. And they had a –. Toby Jenkins: And they needed to get on the –. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, a three-month waiting period to get into the Ryan White Program. Now, I think that has changed now. Toby Jenkins: Right, and so, individuals who had been recently diagnosed were being told probably – this would have been into the early 2000s – were being told if they could get on medication and treatment, it would keep them from having fullblown AIDS. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Toby Jenkins: So it was a frightening diagnosis. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: And then realize you're on a ticking time bomb to make sure you get ahead of the disease. Dr. Frances Haas: And I think the studies we did also helped because a lot of them went on to studies. You got personalized care. I mean, you had a lot of hand-holding by my nurses and education and all – more so than the regular patient. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Dr. Frances Haas: And I think it gave you lifelong adherence. You know, it gave them an edge. It's like you had your own tutor in school, your own personal tutor. And so, you know, that basis was there for the rest of their life, for the old timers. Toby Jenkins: So, you mentioned earlier that you didn't realize that you were going to have a practice that included the care of transgender individuals. When did you rst start having transgender patients who were looking for gender-af rming care? Dr. Frances Haas: Well, I inherited those from Dr. Beal's practice. fi fi 11 fi fi Dr. Frances Haas: I don't know. And, you know, there are the old timers, and then I started getting newer ones, too. �Toby Jenkins: So he had a few. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, yeah. Because he was one of the few doctors who did it. And the patients did a lot of teaching of me. I mean, they had more time than I did to read. They educated me a lot. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Do you have any idea when that you began to see, not just the ones you inherited, but new referrals? Dr. Frances Haas: Like 2000. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Wow. You would have been one of the few doctors in town. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. And one of the things I noticed over the years, initially, a lot of my patients, I knew once they were in their, usually late 30s, early 40s, as the years went by, I had started having parents bringing in their high school students. And that was de nitely a change. Probably around 2005, 2006, that had started, where the younger people, and it was because they recognized it. They didn't, people, the kids knew they were different, but they didn't know what it was. And being heterosexual, as one patient from Owasso told me, she says, “I hung out with the lesbians,” but she never, she says, “I never felt that it was right.” And she was transgender, female to male. Toby Jenkins: So female to male. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Dr. Frances Haas: And there's de nitely a difference. Toby Jenkins: Right. So you're doing infectious disease, caregiving, and gender af rming care for transgender persons and gender-expansive persons. I'm trying to make sure I'm using all the current terminology. Dr. Frances Haas: I haven't heard gender-expansive. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. So did you have any battles with health insurance companies not wanting to cover certain treatments for all of your populations? Dr. Frances Haas: A lot of times they did not cover the hormones. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. I'm not sure about the of ce visits and all. My of ce manager, you know, could probably tell you that. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Dr. Frances Haas: But yeah, the hormones, and we would look, you know, trying to see where we could get the cheapest hormones, you know, what drugstore. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Dr. Frances Haas: And at that time there could be a lot of... fi fi fi fi fi 12 �Toby Jenkins: Did you see an increase of this? I mean, did you begin to see more and more and more because people, they, well, insurance companies being more favorable, but also patients by word of mouth, them telling other individuals? Okay. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, because for several years you were where we referred people, you and just a handful of other doctors. Dr. Frances Haas: And I was glad to see the younger people coming in because cosmetic results were much better. The transition to the appearance of the other improved. Toby Jenkins: Right. Made them more passable and less con ict with presentation. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. It's amazing. I'd be there sitting with the patient. We'd be talking about their blood pressure, cholesterol, and something would come up and they would remind me of their biological sex because I get, you know, I'd be talking about prostate and they were a biological female. And, uh, they, they would remind me because they transitioned so well that, you know, you just, you know, they look like a man. Toby Jenkins: So these would have been individuals who were post-surgery. They had... Where did you refer people for surgical? Dr. Frances Haas: Initially, Stanley Biber out in Trinidad, Colorado. I even went out and met him. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Dr. Frances Haas: He's a nice old guy. And then, um, Darcy? Marcy? Toby Jenkins: Dr. Marci Bowers. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. Yeah. And then her. And then there was a group down in the Dallas area. Uh, I can't remember their names anymore, that, that did a lot of it. And of course, initially, most people went to (Dr.) Biber or Thailand. A lot of people went to Thailand, and I thought, why Thailand? That didn't seem right. But I learned that they were more accepting of gender identity disorder, and some of their physicians had specialized in that. Toby Jenkins: And also, they were more affordable. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, true. Dennis Neill: Right. Dr. Haas, were you a sole practitioner? Dr. Frances Haas: Yes. Dennis Neill: Did you have any issues staf ng your clinic, given the clientele? Dr. Frances Haas: Not really staf ng it. I did hear a horror story from Dr. Beal about his of ce before I got there. I guess they were having new carpeting put in, and the fl fi fi fi 13 �guys came in and did it, and when they found out that it was an HIV practice, they didn't come back after lunch. And Dr. Beal could tell you a lot of stories about that. Dennis Neill: And then how about – you mentioned your service to adolescents looking at the transition. Were you also working with puberty blockers prior to hormones? So at what age do you see the appropriate transition from blockers to actual hormone therapy? Dr. Frances Haas: Usually, most of the patients who were coming in to me were probably around 16, 17. And I always made sure that they had a psychiatric evaluation before, because there were a few patients that's like, “I think you're crazy,” but they were patients that had gotten into the system. And they always had to bring a parent in with them. So that was part of it. Toby Jenkins: Now, did you start them on puberty blockers at 16 or 17, or did you go ahead and start them on hormones? Because at 16 or 17, several of them had already begun to –. Dr. Frances Haas: Most of them were coming at that age, so I just started them on hormones. They were kind of a little bit older. Toby Jenkins: And so in your research and your work, just curious if you're comfortable, there's such a debate around it right now, and, of course, Oklahoma is restricting care for minors. Your medical opinion, if you're comfortable telling us, do you have any concerns about the treatment of minors or puberty blockers, or do you feel like Oklahoma's made a huge mistake? Dr. Frances Haas: I think they've made a mistake in some areas. I'm okay with the hormones and puberty blockers, because if you stop them, you can usually reverse. There's some questions about fertility issues and all that. But what I am adamantly against is surgery before the age of 18. And I might even go older than that, because I've had some patients who are transgender, and then as I follow them, they had surgery. And later it's like, well, I've met this person, and it's like it's irreversible. Surgery's irreversible. The puberty blockers and hormones are not, you know. They can be reversed as a rule, but surgery you cannot. And so young people can get mixed up, and they can get confused. And, you know, I'm not the same person I was when I was that age. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Dr. Frances Haas: And so I am de nitely against the surgery. I might make exceptions for somebody who's got the characteristics of both sexes. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Dr. Frances Haas: But those are not very common. Toby Jenkins: Right. Okay. Dr. Frances Haas: And I know I'm probably going to make some enemies with that. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, well, but you're a medical doctor. We want your opinion. We want your position on this. fi 14 �Dr. Frances Haas: It's irreversible, and that's why. Toby Jenkins: So you're saying medical procedures for people who are intersex, who have some ambiguity about the genitalia. Okay. But you de nitely support parents and the physicians being able to prescribe puberty blockers and even some hormone therapies prior to 18. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Did you nd that parents came well-informed, or were they aggressive with you, demanding that you do this? I mean – Dr. Frances Haas: The patients, they came well-informed. They'd studied, and it was, uh, “I need help.” I didn't, I don't think I had any aggressive parents. I would occasionally get some aggressive patients who was like, “This is what I want,” and I didn't always agree with them. But they were usually in their 20s or 30s. But the parents, no, it's just like, “Help my kid.” You know, “I want what's best for my kid.” Toby Jenkins: So, um, while you've practiced in Oklahoma, and you've done research on a couple of different areas of specialties, um, has it been dif cult to see sometimes there'd be so much friction from the state Capitol trying to, um – Dr. Frances Haas: I don't understand it. It's like, a, as an example, a transgender person, female to male, could look like you. And I don't want a biological female who's transgendered to a male with a big beard and looks like a guy who's going to rape me in the bathroom with me. I'm sorry. But I have no problems with, say, a male to a female who looks female and everything. You know, it's appearance. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Dr. Frances Haas: And it would be dangerous for somebody who looks female, who's a biological male, to go into a male restroom. Vice versa for a male to, or a female to a male who looks male who goes, is required to go into a female restroom. It's going to freak, you know, women out, and especially if they've got their young kids and everything. And I don't think the legislators understand that. I really wonder if they should have an organized group that goes into the Legislature bathrooms and all and says, you know, here's my paperwork. I'm a biological female. You know, that's what, but I'm required to go into this, you know, female restroom. I'm sorry I look like a male, you know. Toby Jenkins: So you feel like the focus is too much on males to females who present as female but may be biologically male, and they're ignoring the fact that there are trans females who, or trans males who were born female and have transitioned and identify and present as male, and you feel like they're too focused on the gender speci cs. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, yeah, and not the appearance. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Is that what's driving, is people's rejection of people, is that what's driving the political animus towards –? Dr. Frances Haas: I think part of it is the politicians, and of course it diverts from other subjects, but I don't think they understand. They don't, they don't understand. fi fi fi fi 15 �It's like when I would be on an airplane taking a trip, sitting next to somebody, and we'd start, you know, talking, I would tell them all, bring up about my HIV and tell them, you know, that I did that, and they'd start asking questions. It was a time to educate, and we need the same thing for the transgender, for them to educate, and maybe trying to meet one-on-one, you know, with legislators and say, you know, I'm a biological female, but they, you know, look de nitely male. And we don't want confrontation. We just want to educate. Toby Jenkins: So, I guess, is it overstating it by saying, obviously what's driving it at the statehouse, the politics, is not good medical science; it's not science; it's just personal animus and bigotry and targeting a speci c community who you don't understand. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, they don't understand it. And I have to say, you know, I didn't understand it. You know, there's a difference between being homosexual and transgender. Toby Jenkins: Right. One's sexual orientation, one is sexual identity. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, yeah. A lot of my transgender patients say that they were a male who wanted to transition to female. They look at their penis and their testicles as foreign masses. I mean, they're foreign objects, you know. It's like they're gross. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, very gender dysphoric. Dr. Frances Haas: And my female-to-male looked at the breasts as, oh, my God, you know, and they didn't like them. And I thought one interesting thing on my young people when they come in, female-to-male, and I, you know, would ask them what their bra size was, you know, cup size. And most of the time, they had no idea. A biological female usually knows, “I'm a B cup.” “I'm a D cup.” I mean, you're proud of it. Them, they didn't know, and their parent or a friend would speak up and say, “I think they're about a C cup.” But they never knew because they're binding their breasts. They're hiding them, because to them, they're gross. They're tumors. And I always thought that was an interesting thing. Toby Jenkins: Were all of your transgender patients, by the time they got to you, had they already been seeking counseling and therapy? Dr. Frances Haas: I required them to have counsel and get a referral from a psychiatrist or therapist. Because some of those that I got from Dr. Beale were, it's like I wasn't comfortable with it. And I also reserved, even if I got a psychiatric referral, if it didn't seem right to me, I would refuse to treat. But that only happened once. I checked with the counselor who referred, who was well-versed in it. And she says, “I agree with you.” She says, “But I went through all the testing. And they kind of aced all the questions and everything. But it just didn't, my gut instinct says, “I'm not sure this is right.” And so I went with my gut instinct, and I just declined to treat. Toby Jenkins: So as a physician, I mean, obviously, you want what's best for your patients. So did you have to, even for people living with HIV-AIDS, or just your other patients, did you have to make medical counsel decisions when your patient wanting something that you questioned whether it was good for them? fi fi 16 �Toby Jenkins: So I know over the years, while you've been focused on your patients and your care, you've also kind of been a community activist. I can remember the rst time I met you, it was at the AIDS walk, the annual AIDS walk that we would have in October. And it would be a gathering of the community to raise funds, usually for the Ryan White Clinic and Tulsa Cares. And usually, the money we raised went to those agencies. And that was the rst time I met you. You really stood out. There was a halo around you that said “Dr. Haas.” No, it wasn't that. What made you stand out is here was this little bitty, tiny lady with these massive dogs. And what kind of dogs are those? Dr. Frances Haas: Great Danes. Toby Jenkins: Great Danes. And they were huge. And you were so tiny. And we would do the AIDS walk, which usually was maybe a mile walk. I mean, it was just strictly for fun. But it was to raise funds. Did you enjoy those kind of social interactions? Dr. Frances Haas: I did. Toby Jenkins: You do realize that you added real legitimacy to this when a medical provider was out there? Because most of the time, it was just people from our community, individuals who were living with HIV, and their friends, and their family, and maybe their faith communities. But when the medical providers were there, there was a certain amount of, y'all were going the extra mile. You weren't only treating them. You were ghting for public awareness. Dr. Frances Haas: Well, I think part of that, I'm an osteopathic physician. We treat the whole patient. It's like if the patient can't get the medicine, I need to gure out how I can get the medicine for them. You know, you treat the whole body. It's not just the physical body; it's the mental component, spiritual, any, the monetary, you know, as much as you can. It's treating, you know, the holistic approach. And that's part of it, is being part of the community. And the osteopathic profession actually looks for their medical students. They look at the ones who have been involved. And like, you know, part of my references when I got in, it helped me to get in because my MCAT scores weren't that great. Like I said, some of my grades were good, superb, and some of them weren't so good. But I was active in politics, I was active in church, I was a Jaycee, active in different work things. Toby Jenkins: So your approach, even back when you were nursing, has been a community, you understood the value of community and alliances and resources. I know that there have been many times you've weighed in on negative bills that were being introduced by the Legislature. I want to ask speci cally about a particular bill. Back several years ago, Oklahomans for Equality was trying to advocate for a bill fi fi fi 17 fi fi Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, and that was tough. Some have noticed, and I've seen this with other physicians, as well, when the patient doesn't get what they want, they go and report you on Health Grades. Look at the referrals. It's usually somebody that's like, “They didn't give me my pain medicine.” That's a common one. But I've had patients, I didn't give them the hormones that they wanted. And some of them can get kind of far out there. The minority, by far. But majority of them were, you know, great. �that would not criminalize HIV people for infecting somebody else. And you and I had a big discussion about that, and I'd like to just know your thoughts about that. Criminalization of HIV people is people who knowingly try to infect someone or they don't tell somebody their status and put that person at risk. Now, that discussion was a much larger discussion probably prior to the development of PrEP and PEP and the pre-exposure prophylaxis treatments that are so common now with people living with HIV where the medication almost makes them non-transmittable. Their viral load is undetectable and they're not transmittable. You saw all that develop, so just give us your thoughts on intentionally HIV infecting somebody and the disease. Dr. Frances Haas: I think if you know that you're HIV, you have the responsibility to tell the person that you're going to have a sexual relationship with that you are, and taking precautions. I mean, it's just the right thing to do. Follow the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you don't know that you're infected, and that can happen, and you accidentally infect somebody, that to me is not a crime. But going out and, in fact, knowing you have it and going out and doing it. And I've had patients tell me horror stories I heard. One guy told me about how he and his drug abuse group, you know, stay off drugs, how he purposely slept with every woman in the group. You know, I had another patient who, the guy she was seeing, they were using a condom, and she didn't know that he was HIV, but he was putting a pinhole in on, which she went and checked him, and he had infected her. I had another one who knew he was positive who infected one of my transgender patients. And, you know, a teenager. I had another teenager who, you know, and I always wondered, you know, got infected, gave blood and found out they were infected. And I asked them who did it, and they said somebody at school, but I always worried that he lied to me. And then it was, you know, because I've got to report that stuff. If it's, you know, if an adult would have sexual relationships with a female, or with a... Toby Jenkins: Minor. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Right. Dr. Frances Haas: So I've always wondered about that. Toby Jenkins: And you've kind of seen it all, haven't you? Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, yeah. Toby Jenkins: And so if I understand you, your position is if you know your status, you should be responsible and make sure that you protect others. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, yeah. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Dr. Frances Haas: It's just the right thing to do. Because you wouldn't, I don't think if you knew you were positive and you went out and infected somebody, it just seems so wrong and mean and sel sh. Toby Jenkins: And irresponsible. fi 18 �Dr. Frances Haas: And irresponsible. And, you know, now we've got the preventive, so that really helps. Toby Jenkins: But do you feel like there's almost an attitude? I don't know if you still are, you still practicing? Dr. Frances Haas: No. Toby Jenkins: It does feel like among our culture there is almost a, especially for individuals who are living with HIV that are undetectable and non-transmittable. It does feel like we have such a culture of casualness about it now because everybody just assumes that everybody's on PrEP- the pre-exposure prophylaxis- that everybody's on PrEP and that you don't have a responsibility to be transparent. It concerns me because, you know, I lived through the time when silence was death, and where it seems like right now we're in a real precipitous place because even the federal government is restricting funding for HIV treatment and HIV education and organizations and medical services are struggling to nd nancial support. I mean there are documented situations where some states have already begun. They've kicked off thousands of patients who are getting their treatments, and they're telling them they’re going to have to go nd medication someplace else. Dr. Frances Haas: I hope that their providers are going to some of the programs that the pharmaceutical companies have. I usually get down on pharmaceutical companies, but the ones with the HIV were wonderful. I mean, when I had problems getting meds for a patient, I would call up my rep, and they helped me a lot to get my meds that I needed for my patients. Dennis Neill: With regard to your clinic, when you decided to retire, where did your patients go, particularly those that were HIV or trans? Dr. Frances Haas: The ones that were trans went to a provider- and I can't remember their name, but it's over in the- who is a nurse practitioner or PA. You probably know who I mean. Toby Jenkins: Diversity Clinic. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, and then some of them went to the Ryan White. There was another local doctor that some of them went to. Dennis Neill: So you feel like there is enough capacity in our community to address these clients? Dr. Frances Haas: I don't know. Dennis Neill: And what year did you actually retire? Dr. Frances Haas: I quit in 2021 when I turned 70. It's like, okay, I'm working a 60hour workweek. I'm getting old. It's time to slow down. Dennis Neill: And did you sell the clinic? Dr. Frances Haas: No, I was working for Warren Clinic then, and I retired from them. Yeah, actually, when I bought the clinic from Jeff Beal and I tried to keep it going, but fi fi fi 19 �I couldn't make the insurance companies pay me, and I went broke with being in private practice, and you just didn't have the time because you're working so many hours and you're focusing on the patient to manage, you know, trying to get the insurance to pay, and then I joined University of Oklahoma and taught there for ve years and then I went to Warren Clinic and then retired from there, and since then I've been working for Geriatric Center of Tulsa until February of this year doing geriatric care and also would have residents in internal medicine from OSU and the medical school or the residency in Tahlequah to learn geriatric medicine. And I quit that in February. I wanted to learn osteopathic manipulation better because I had it in school but I didn't have anybody to practice on. So I asked OSU if I could, you know, kind of sit in on their classes, and they said, “Sure, we'll make you a table trainer.” They actually pay me, I said, “But I, I need to learn.” They said, “You know more than those rst-year students,” and so I've learned a lot. It's changed a lot in the past 30 years, and so I'm learning that, and I'm getting ready to start. I really miss patients and so I'm getting ready to start volunteering for I think it's called the Cura – C U R A – Clinic over in Sapulpa. So looking at that. Toby Jenkins: Well, we're always looking for volunteers here at our medical clinic here in theDr. Frances Haas: I don't have insurance. Toby Jenkins: And they have treated a lot of transgender patients. So we've talked a lot about your professional work and your patient work. Are you partnered? Dr. Frances Haas: You mean like a spouse? Toby Jenkins: Yes, yeah, Dr. Frances Haas: I nally married at age 48. Late to go to medical school; late to marry. Don't have any children except the dogs. My spouse has been very supportive of my work. Initially he was afraid that I would, you know, that I'd pick up HIV. But he's learned. I've educated him, And he was in computer management in the ONEOK building; he had a data center there. As he said, all these data centers that they're proposing here, he was kind of the start of it. Dennis Neill: And how about during your practice, your intersection with HOPE, Tulsa Cares, OkEQ, OSU, was that part of your outreach for your clients? Did you have much interaction with those other organizations? Dr. Frances Haas: I had some with OU. I had, would get residents from OU, internal medicine, rotating through. Toby Jenkins: In the medical school. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, and then not too much with OSU. Tulsa Cares, yes, you know, referring people to their nutritional program and all that. We worked together, worked a lot with Sharon Thoele, and HOPE, knew them, and you know, and they would refer patients to me. Toby Jenkins: Patients who had been recently diagnosed. Well, I know you usually attended the World AIDS Day events here at the Equality Center. I think we've had fi fi fi 20 �you speak a couple of times. I just wonder if our panelists have any other questions for you, and did you have anything else you want to make sure we cover? Dr. Frances Haas: I could say after I started doing transgender medicine, my stepbrother became my stepsister. I get a letter. It comes while we're driving out to Colorado, and I read the letter, and it's like, “Oh, well this makes perfect sense, because it's like something's not right about him.” And I can remember my parents, my mom and stepfather, my second stepfather, the good stepfather, talking about, is he gay? You know, they're married, they've got a kid, and when I got that letter, it's like, well this explains everything, and she had surgery in Thailand and everything. Toby Jenkins: So this would be the spouse of your sister? Dr. Frances Haas: It was my second stepfather, his son, is now my stepsister. So, and I've known her since I was 14. Dennis Neill: Now, how's she dealing with it in this new climate? Dr. Frances Haas: Fearful. They're thinking of moving to France. Dennis Neill: Oh, they live in France? Dr. Frances Haas: One reason I am for early treatment is she makes an ugly woman, because she had everything done at 50, started the hormones and all, so you know, you've got the masculinization. And I saw my people who started in high school, the feminization, they just, the appearance was much better. You know, some of them were really drop-dead beautiful. I was stunned. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: What a coincidence, though. Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, yeah, and you know, but she is, you know, a little bit fearful, and talking about moving to France. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: She did move to France. Dr. Frances Haas: She's thinking about it, yeah. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: She hasn’t yet. Where does she live now? Dr. Frances Haas: Vermont. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: Okay. Toby Jenkins: Well I hope Vermont's more... Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, yeah. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: One of the more liberal areas. And what happened with her family after she... Dr. Frances Haas: That was kind of interesting. She, she was married, had a daughter. The marriage was a little rocky, and when this all came about, there was a pretty severe divorce, and the daughter went with the mother and was estranged from the father for years. And then on Facebook, the daughter says, who's Susan ******? And my little sister says, “I'm not answering that.” She says, “Let her Aunt 21 �Nancy handle that.” So Aunt Nancy said, you know, “That's your dad.” And so, then we all got together in Phoenix and had a family reunion. So, got back together. She didn't realize what was going on. Her mom had kept it from her. Mary Bishop-Baldwin: How old was she at the time? Dr. Frances Haas: She was probably in high school, but mom just, they just kept it hidden. And she didn't realize the transgender, you know. And so now they have a relationship again. Dennis Neill: Is that true with all extended family too, as far as the transgender? Dr. Frances Haas: Yeah, you know, I am blessed in my family in that, you know, we're two blended families and we just get along really well. I mean, you know, I've got one niece that's a little bit of a problem, but we've just put the two families together really well for parents marrying later in life and all. So our family's really blessed. I compare it to my husband's family, and it's like he's got one of those families. I got a sister-in-law I don't like. Our family's been blessed in that we all get along. I think my second cousin, I think their son may be transgender. I know his mom called me to talk to me about it. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So you've had family and friends and neighbors and patients and, you know. Yeah. We usually ask this, what message would you like to give for the future, for those who come after us, for younger people, younger activists, maybe younger medical providers, what message would you like to give them? Dr. Frances Haas: I think education of what being transgendered is, is incredibly necessary. Confrontation usually does not work. And for those accepting, it's like, as a female, I may like guys with dark hair or I may like guys with baldness. Other people can't stand a bald-headed guy. You can’t tell about sexual attraction. I can remember as a child getting mixed up with my gender when I was probably about 3 or 4. I have very ne hair. Somebody told my mother it'd thicken it up if they cut it short, like a boy. It's like, “Well, I have short hair. I must be a boy.” I named myself Gary. It probably only lasted about a year until my hair started growing out and I realized. They need research on it because there's different places in the brain that turn on and say, “I'm a male.” “I'm a female.” One of them's around age 2 or 3. There's another one in adolescence. On imaging studies, there’s some differences in male and female brains. One thing that I would like to see looked at is a lot of my transgender patients were what I call double-jointed, where they bring the hand back way like this. I don't know if it's that common in the regular population or if it's, you know, a trait of being transgender. I did bring this up with a friend of mine who's going to specialized in that disorder to look into that because it may be genetics. So it's not a choice. It's not a choice. Toby Jenkins: Physical characteristics that are manifest in all sorts of different ways. Certainly, it's just because someone is different or they may not be like everybody else. It's not a reason to vilify them, be violent towards them, or restrict their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Anything else? Dr. Frances Haas: I think that's about it. fi 22 �Toby Jenkins: Thank you so much. This has been so helpful. Dr. Frances Fae Haas here on May 5th, 2026, at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center in the Joe and Nancy McDonald Rainbow Library. You've heard her story here on the History Project. Thank you so much for Dr. Haas. And on behalf of our team, we want to thank you for serving the LGBTQ community, transgender community, our brothers and sisters who lived with HIV/AIDS. Thank you. I'm so glad that you saw that light in the window and you felt called to take care of this community. Thank you so much. 23 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2026] Frances Haas Interview Subject The topic of the resource Frances Haas Oral History Interview from May 5, 2026 Description An account of the resource In this in-depth interview, Dr. Frances Haas shares her remarkable journey from a small-town girl to a pioneering physician serving the LGBTQ community, including HIV/AIDS patients and transgender individuals. She discusses her career, medical insights, advocacy, and the evolving landscape of gender-affirming care. Interview conducted by Toby Jenkins, transcribed and edited by Mary Bishop-Baldwin. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Frances Haas, Toby Jenkins, Mary Bishop-Baldwin Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 5, 2026 2026 AIDS treatment AIDS/HIV Dr. Frances Fae Haas Frances Haas gender affirming gender affirming care gender-affirming care healthcare HIV research HIV treatment HIV/AIDs Mary Bishop-Baldwin OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Toby Jenkins transcript Transgender Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2005] Glenna Cooper Interview Description An account of the resource Transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on January 31, 2005. <strong>Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong> In the inteview, Glenna discusses the challenges facing the deaf community and their interactions with the LGBTQ+ community.<br /><br />No tape, done on computer. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource January 31, 2005 Subject The topic of the resource Glenna Cooper Oral History Project Interview from January 31, 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Glenna Cooper, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2005 available at Center deaf community Glenna Cooper interview Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript transcript https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/80a666c71fa7d00ebe6c35e6c3cd5029.mp4 a529e7f8f4fac75bb63c5db6e403adfb https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/1fb8011913addc5505031ad0b07566bc.pdf a0af57e73d112460472ed6b6c2955e74 PDF Text Text Oklahomans for Equality Oral History Interview with Gordon George Interview Conducted by Toby Jenkins Date: February 3, 2026 Transcribed By: Dennis Neill using Reduct.Video February 8, 2026 Restrictions: Interviewee requested: N/A Oklahomans for Equality History Project 621 E. 4th Street Tulsa, OK. 74120 918.743.4297 historyproject@okeq.org 1 �About Gordon George Keywords Gordon George, LGBTQ history, Tulsa, community, coming out, AIDS crisis, activism, volunteer work, identity, equality Takeaways ● Gordon George shares his early life in Oswego, Kansas. ● He discusses the challenges of fitting in during school. ● Moving to Tulsa was a pivotal moment for Gordon's identity. ● He recalls his first experiences in the gay community. ● Gordon's involvement in LGBTQ activism began in the 80s. ● He faced challenges during the AIDS crisis and supported affected friends. ● Coming out to his family was a significant turning point. ● Gordon reflects on the changes in the LGBTQ community over the years. ● He emphasizes the importance of volunteering and community support. ● Gordon encourages future generations to appreciate and protect their rights. 2 �Summary In this conversation, Gordon George shares his life story, detailing his experiences growing up in Kansas, moving to Tulsa, and discovering his identity as a gay man. He reflects on the challenges he faced in school, his involvement in the LGBTQ community, and the impact of the AIDS crisis. Gordon discusses his journey of coming out to his family, the importance of volunteering, and the progress of LGBTQ rights over the years. He emphasizes the need for continued activism and support for future generations. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Early Life 03:04 School Experiences and Identity 05:55 Moving to Tulsa and Discovering Community 09:05 Exploring Sexuality and Relationships 11:59 Involvement in the LGBTQ Community 14:59 Challenges and Triumphs in the 80s 18:08 Family Dynamics and Coming Out 20:59 AIDS Crisis and Community Support 24:03 Volunteering and Activism 27:05 Reflections on Change and Progress 30:00 Current Involvement and Future Outlook Gordon George Oral History Interview February 3, 2026 Toby Jenkins: This is February the 3rd on Tuesday in 2026, and we're here in the Nancy and Joe Rainbow Library at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center. And today, we are interviewing Gordon George. And Gordon, can you tell us your name and your date of birth? Gordon George: Gordon George, 10-5-53. Toby Jenkins: Okay, very good. And where were you born? Gordon George: Oswego, Kansas. Toby Jenkins: Oswego, Kansas. And about where is that located? Gordon George: Southeast Kansas. Toby Jenkins: Southeast Kansas, so not far from the Oklahoma line? Gordon George: Right. 3 �Toby Jenkins: Yeah. And is that a little town, big town? Gordon George: Little. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: They don't even have a hospital anymore. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Do they still have a full high school and all of that? Gordon George: As far as I know, yeah. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, okay. So you were born there and is that where your parents are from? Gordon George: They're from Southeast Kansas, yes. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. And what was your dad's name and what is your mom's name? Gordon George: Freddy was my dad. My mother was Stella. Toby Jenkins: Stella? And are they still living? Gordon George: My dad's still kicking, 92. Toby Jenkins: 92 years old. Gordon George: And mother's been gone 23 years. Toby Jenkins: Okay. What was their careers? What did they do forGordon George: My dad was a teamster. Toby Jenkins: Oh. Gordon George: And mother was a homemaker and then she went into tax preparation. Did that for many years. Toby Jenkins: And how many siblings? Do you have siblings? Gordon George: I have one brother and a sister. I was the middle child. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Are they both still with us? Gordon George: No. My brother died twelve years ago, I think. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: And my sister's still with us. She lives near Kansas City. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Were you ever married? Gordon George: No. Toby Jenkins: So you don't have any children that you know of? 4 �Gordon George: No. I know there's no children. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Very good. All right. So your father's still living. Where did you go to school? Gordon George: Independence, Kansas. Toby Jenkins: And so did your family move to Independence, Kansas, or? Gordon George: Yes. We moved to Coffeyville when I was very young. And we moved to Independence when I was in the third grade. Toby Jenkins: And what was Independence like? Gordon George: Horrible. Toby Jenkins: The school you mean or just the city? Gordon George: It was a clicky town. Very clickish. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: And I have no desire to go back other than to see my dad. Toby Jenkins: So no warm feelings, or? Gordon George: Oh, no, no, no. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. And you moved there in the third grade, was it difficult? New kid in that school. Did you not feel welcome, or? Gordon George: Oh, in grade school, it wasn't so bad. It's junior high and high school is when it got rough. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: Because I didn't feel I fit in. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Because you weren't from Independence and you all had moved there or because of your religion or your ethnicity or because youGordon George: We lived south of Main Street. We didn't live on the good side of town. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: And people looked at that, where you live. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: So I just- it's still that way. That town's still that way. Toby Jenkins: Still very clickish and segregated according to class. Gordon George: Yes. 5 �Toby Jenkins: And according to a person's- how much money they make. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Because people's descriptions of small towns are that they're wonderful and welcoming and everybody's so close and looks after each other. But that wasn't your experience. Gordon George: No. Toby Jenkins: Where did you go to high school? Gordon George: Independence. Toby Jenkins: And what year did you graduate? Gordon George: '71. Toby Jenkins: 1971. Okay. And did you go on to technical school? Were you in the military? Gordon George: I attended junior college. I didn't graduate. And I moved to Oklahoma in '79. Toby Jenkins: '79? Now, where did you go to junior college? Gordon George: Independence. Toby Jenkins: Independence. Oh, there's a junior school and college there? Gordon George: Mm-hmm. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: And then I came- when I moved here, I went to Tulsa Junior College here for a couple courses. I did some- I got my real estate license with Tulsa Tech here in Tulsa, so. Toby Jenkins: And that would have been in '79 when you moved to Tulsa? Gordon George: Yes, I think so. Toby Jenkins: So how did you decide to move to Tulsa? Gordon George: To get out of that. Toby Jenkins: To get out of Independence? Gordon George: Oh, yeah. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Right. So you went to high school there. I mean did you have a job there in Independence for a while? Gordon George: I worked for Southwestern Bell. 6 �Toby Jenkins: Okay. Is that what brought you to Tulsa? Gordon George: Yes. Toby Jenkins: You were able to transfer? Gordon George: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Okay, perfect. And what was that like in the 1970s? Working with- what did you do with Southwest Bell? Gordon George: I was actually- when I started, I started as a cord board operator. The Lily Tomlin. Toby Jenkins: Really? Gordon George: Yeah. Actually doing the cords into the switchboard. Toby Jenkins: So if I had called there in the 70s, you would have answered and you would have transferred my call or you would have made a long distance call or did you do information? What was yourGordon George: All of it. Toby Jenkins: All of it. Gordon George: Okay. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: And I came to Oklahoma and went into information from there and then went into sales at the phone store. Toby Jenkins: How neat. Mall Bell. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. So that's what brought you to Tulsa. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: Now, since you were never married, what pronoun do you use? How do you identify your gender? Gordon George: I'm a gay male. Toby Jenkins: Okay, so you identify as a gay man. Gordon George: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Do you remember- we've talked about how you weren't happy in Independence and that you felt some isolation. Did you have an awareness that you were gay or that you had same-sex attraction? 7 �Gordon George: Oh yeah. Starting back in junior high school. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So you began to have those feelings and you knew what that was. Okay. And did you have resources? I mean did you go to the library and look in a book or did you just kind of knew what that meant? Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Did you ever feel any kind of awareness that there were other people in your school who were like you? Gordon George: One. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Did you ever feel like some of your unhappiness in junior high and high school had to do with- did anybody bully you or make you feel like you were different? Gordon George: Oh, I was bullied, yes. Particularly one gentleman or one kid. I don't know if- why he targeted me. But paybacks are hell. He died young. Toby Jenkins: Oh, mercy. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: So you don't really, you don't feel like you were bullied in high school because they perceived you were different, or? Gordon George: No. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So you said that you were in junior high when you had these feelings. When you moved to Tulsa with Southwestern Bell, I still- I just think that's fascinating that you were- you used the Lily Tomlin one ringy dingy to the switchboard operator. Which- I'm just out of curiosity, I don't know that I ever called information and ever got a male voice. Did you ever hear anybody be surprised that it was a male sounding voice that answered the line or? Gordon George: Not so much because we had a female that sounded like a guy. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: So there was two of us. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: And of course my voice was a little high. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: So. 8 �Toby Jenkins: Fascinating. So you had came to Tulsa. You were an adult, young adult. Did you realize you were gay? Gordon George: Oh, yeah. Toby Jenkins: And were ready to act upon it and? Gordon George: Yeah, first time in a gay bar when I came to Oklahoma. Toby Jenkins: And do you remember what year that would have been? Gordon George: 80. Toby Jenkins: Okay. And do you remember what the bar was, the club? Gordon George: Tim's Playroom. Toby Jenkins: Tim's Playroom. Okay. And how did you find out about Tim's Playroom? Gordon George: A co-worker invited me to go. Toby Jenkins: So you had a gay co-worker? Gordon George: Mm-hmm. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: And he invited me to go with him, and we went to the bar. First time I was in a bar. Toby Jenkins: And what was your thoughts that first experience of being in a space where there were other people like you? And it was that nobody could look into it. The windows were covered overGordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: - and you could beGordon George: And it was a drag show that day, too. Toby Jenkins: Oh, was it? That's the first time you'd ever? Gordon George: Mm-hmm. Toby Jenkins: Yeah? Do you remember your feelings that day, or? Gordon George: I was nervous as hell. Toby Jenkins: Really? Gordon George: Yeah. 'Cause I didn't know what to expect. I just really didn't know what going to a gay bar was gonna entail. I had no idea, so. Toby Jenkins: Now, had you had an intimate relationship prior to going to the gay bar? I mean, had you had an intimate9 �Gordon George: ... back in junior high. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: Same one, over and over. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So that was when you explored your sexuality? Gordon George: He brought me out, yes. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. And so you knew from junior high on that you were attracted to your same sex? Gordon George: Yes. Toby Jenkins: So when you moved to Tulsa, you had this co-worker. Did you begin to explore other relationships with gay men? Gordon George: Yes, but not with my co-worker. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So you went to Tim's playroom. Did that become kind of something you did on a regular basis? Went to gay bars andGordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: Most weekends. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Because at work, you couldn't be out, right? Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: I mean, that was a ... . Gordon George: Well, it wasn't so much. I think people perceived that if you worked as an operator, that maybe you were gay, as a perception. But I wasn't out. I wasn't open about it. Toby Jenkins: What was the community like, that you found in the clubs and the bars? Gordon George: More accepting than I thought it would be. Toby Jenkins: So you're just a boy from KansasGordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: - Land in the big city. And what was Tulsa like in those days? Gordon George: Other than the bars, I didn't do much, 'cause of the hours that I worked with Bill. 'Cause there's times that I worked nights and late evenings. Go in at six o'clock and get off at midnight. Or go in at 06:00 and stay till 02:00, it just depends. 10 �Gordon George: So it kinda- and there was more one-on-one in those days with your customers online, or on the phone than there is today. Because they had to physically ask for addresses and stuff like that if we could even give it out. And more interaction with the publicToby Jenkins: Oh, yeah. Gordon George: - Than there is today. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, you called information for everything. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: There were even songs about information. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Okay, so you had went to Tim's playroom, and that's how you first connected with the gay community in Tulsa? Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: Okay. It's the early 80s, late 70s in Tulsa. Did you go to any theater programs, any sports events? And just a part of the culture in Tulsa thatGordon George: Yeah. We'd do public events, like when they had ice skating at the downtown. We'd go to the Nutcracker during the holidays on ice. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Gordon George: Go do that kinda thing and let it out. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Tulsa had a downtown mall in those daysGordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: - Built around, I think it's called the Galleria, wasn't it? Dennis Neill: Forum. Toby Jenkins: Forum, called the Forum. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, Galleria was in Dallas. So you would do things like that, social events. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Now, when you went to this club, did you meet some other guys, and they kinda became your posse, or your clique of friends, or? Gordon George: No, it was more introduction through the co-worker. Because he had been out for many years. 11 �Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: And he introduced me to some of his friends. We'd become a circle of friends that would do things, mainly go to the bars. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Do you remember some of the other clubs that you might've went to? You keep saying the bars. Gordon George: Zippers. Toby Jenkins: Went to Zippers, okay. And what was Zippers? Gordon George: It was a high-energy bar. Toby Jenkins: Like a disco? Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: And of course, The Bamboo. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Yeah, whichGordon George: That was a trash bar. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, but it had been there forever. Yeah, it's one of the oldest. And it was in the north part of Tulsa. The Zippers was Midtown, like 31st and Yale. Gordon George: Yale. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. So were there any- through the clubs, were you aware of any things like gay softball leagues, gay churches? Gordon George: Gay churches. I attended Metropolitan Community for a while. Toby Jenkins: Okay. And where was it located? Gordon George: North Tulsa. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So I know that they also had a congregation in Jenks at one time, but you went to the north Tulsa location on Queen. It was on Queen. Gordon George: I couldn't tell you. Toby Jenkins: And- so you were connected to that. What about any of the gay softball programs, or what about pride picnics? Gordon George: I had- I- when they had it at Mohawk Park, I drove through it once. I thought, no, I can't do this. Toby Jenkins: And why was that? Gordon George: The crowd, and I just didn't feel comfortable. 12 �Toby Jenkins: Was it because of visibility, or just the large crowd? Gordon George: More the large crowd. Toby Jenkins: Okay, yeah. So that was the- that would've been the early 80s, and you were still with Southwest Bell. Were you staying in contact with your family? I mean, it's pretty common for gay men, lesbian women to move from small towns to bigger cities, where there can be some distance between their families in those days because they didn't wanna embarrass their families, or they wanted their life- their adult life to be private. Were you still in contact with your parents and independents? Gordon George: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: It didn't change. I mean, I didn't come out to my family until '85, '86. Toby Jenkins: Okay, and what was that like? Gordon George: It was in a fit of rage. Toby Jenkins: Okay, tell us a little bit about that. Gordon George: I had been to- I was living in Oklahoma City at the time. I went home for Christmas and my brother was there, and we didn't get along, and my mother kept harping at me, why don't you get along with your brother? Why don't you get along with your brother? You need to do this, do that. Gordon George: And that's the first time I told my mother to shut up. I'd had enough. Packed my bags and left. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: So- and that's when- later that spring is when I came out to my family. Toby Jenkins: Okay, the whole family, or just your parents, or your mom, or? Gordon George: My mom and sister. Toby Jenkins: Okay, and how did they handle that? Gordon George: Better than I thought. Mother and I became good friends after that. When I moved to Oklahoma City and then moved back to Tulsa, she would go to the bars with me, and yeah, we would- and there were times we would- just the two of us would go out and have drinks. Sit and talk for hours. 'Cause she lived with me for a while too. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So did she enjoy hanging around with your friends and going to theGordon George: Oh yeah, she was good. She was okay with it, yeah. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, okay. 13 �Gordon George: When I was also involved in the Tulsa AIDS Task Force. Toby Jenkins: Okay, so that's what's going on. Gordon George: And we would do barbecues and stuff. We had a big barbecue out at Inola and they supplied the beef for it. They had a calf slaughtered andToby Jenkins: Oh, a family in Inola did it, or? Gordon George: No, my family. Toby Jenkins: Oh, your parents? Oh wonderful. Gordon George: They provided the beef. Toby Jenkins: And so it was a fundraiser for? Gordon George: Tulsa AIDS Task Force. Toby Jenkins: Okay. That's the first time I've heard that name. Dennis Neill: That was a group that the United Way and Community Service Council had pulled together. All the conveners that met, and then eventually it's been off to Tulsa Cares. Does that sound right? Gordon George: I couldn't tell you. Toby Jenkins: But it's called the Tulsa AIDS Task Force? Gordon George: Mm-hmm. We were the fundraisers for them. Toby Jenkins: For the programs for people living with HIV AIDS? Gordon George: Mm-hmm. Toby Jenkins: Okay, and that would've been mid-80s? Gordon George: Mm-hmm. Toby Jenkins: Okay. And by then, apparently, your family was supporting you, your parents, especially if they were going to gay clubs with you and donating beef for a cookout. Do you remember the first time you heard about AIDS? Gordon George: I had seen it on the news, but I didn't know. I had a friend that asked me to get involved with the task force to help with the fundraising. Toby Jenkins: Did you know people in those early days, who had AIDS and were dying? Or do you rememberGordon George: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: With the church, I was on the RAIN team. 14 �Toby Jenkins: At Metropolitan Community Church, they're a RAIN team? And what did a RAIN team do? Gordon George: We went to support families and patients with HIV. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: And I've seen too many die, so I had to quit doing it. It was too rough. Toby Jenkins: When you say too many died, like there were five or six people that died, or was there dozens, or what was it like forGordon George: That I was involved with, it was probably four or five. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: And then, I had a personal friend that became ill. Toby Jenkins: And so what was that like in those days? You found out your friends had AIDS. What were your thoughts? Tell us what that was like in those days. Gordon George: It was bad. It was tough, especially the friend that I- I was working fulltime. He needed help. And I quit my job. Spent the last couple months of his life helping him. So and that was really bad, really tough. Toby Jenkins: And just took care of him? Gordon George: He went to- well, part of the fundraising that I had helped with, we give, if I remember right, about $10,000 to- I can't think of the name of it, Catholic Charities. They're home forToby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: And he's actuallyToby Jenkins: St. Joseph's ... . Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: That was a hospice care center. Gordon George: Right. And that's where he was at, when he died. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: So- and I was- it made me feel good that I would help raise the money to help support their organization, and they helped him. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: So yeah, it was tough. And he was saying that, why he was- talking about why he was on earth. And I said, "Part of it was because you could be my friend." And that was tough. And I was with him when he took his last breath. So his mother and I were with him. 15 �Toby Jenkins: So in those days, people were finding- they would find out they were ill. I mean, would they go to the doctor because they were feeling bad, or because they were being cautious? Gordon George: They'd go find out that they were ill. And when you found out you had HIV AIDS, there wasn't any kind of treatment plan that was keeping you alive longer in those early days. So people were gone pretty quick. Toby Jenkins: Or did people live with it for a while? Do you remember? Gordon George: Both. Toby Jenkins: Both? So some people lasted longer thanGordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: And what was the general attitude of the community in those days, like in the gay bars, did people act different with their behavior? Did they shun or isolate people once they found out they were sick, or were people being cautious or being careful not to spread it? Gordon George: They weren't as careful as they should've beenToby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: - back then. 'Cause it really hadn't hit home so much here in Oklahoma like it was on major metropolitan areas. So- but once it really got a hold here, people were thinking, oh, yeah, we need to be more careful and actually more responsive as far as fundraising, so…I met a lot of people during the fundraising, people that cared. Toby Jenkins: People outside the gay community, or justGordon George: Oh, yeah. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: The Perigos were one of them [Jerry and Peggy Perigo]. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Yeah. Perigo family? Gordon George: Mm-hmm. Toby Jenkins: Who [Jerry Perigo] was the judge here in town. So this would have all been during the 80s, right? Gordon George: Right. 16 �Toby Jenkins: So you were involved with the Tulsa AIDS Task Force, and a part of RAIN, which was a care team associated with your church. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: That provided care for people living with HIV AIDS. When did you begin to- did you start- were you still working at Southwest Bell? You said you quit your job to take care of your friend. Gordon George: Oh, no. I had left Southwestern Bell before that. I left Southwestern Bell in '85. Toby Jenkins: Okay. When did you- I know you're doing the work with the AIDS Task Force, what about relationships? Did you have a partner during those days? Did you haveGordon George: No. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So you just kinda hung out with the group? Gordon George: Right. Yeah. I didn't- yeah. It was not a pleasant time after I left Bell, and 'cause I did an odd job kinda things and wound up declaring bankruptcy and had to start all over. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So in the fundraising part, did you ever get involved with the quilts, the NAMES project, the AIDS quilts? Gordon George: No. Toby Jenkins: Okay. But you were aware thatGordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: Yeah. I had seen it, but I wasn't involved in any of the organization part of it. Toby Jenkins: Did you ever participate in the annual follies that were big fundraisers for the HIV AIDS causes? Gordon George: No. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Big performance shows. Okay. When did you begin to get involved with TOHR? Did I ask if you ever went to any of the pride picnics, or the pride parades? Did you ever get involved with any of that? Gordon George: No. I didn't get involved until, what was it, '91, '92, maybe. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: And it was when I was attending your church organization. That's when I got involved. 17 �Toby Jenkins: Yeah, that would've been later. That would have been about 1999 something. Gordon George: Was it that late? Toby Jenkins: Yeah. AndGordon George: Oh, okay. '99. Toby Jenkins: You're talking aboutGordon George: Yeah, '99. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, you're talking about the Ekklesia group? Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: Which is a group for recovering evangelicals and who- wasn't really a church. It was kind of a Christian support group. And it would meet at the center, the TOHR center, which was in Highland Park. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: So that's where you've began to get involved and started volunteering with the organization. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Do you… I know that at one year, you received 'Volunteer of the year' from TOHR- probably Oklahomans for Equality by then. And why were you given that award? Do you remember? Gordon George: For the help of working here on the building. Toby Jenkins: Yep. Gordon George: And doing…I got even the very first Thanksgiving dinner we had here I helped with. I wasn't in charge of it at that time, but I helped with it. So- and Kristi Freeman I think was ... Toby Jenkins: Kristi Freeman? Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Who was on the board. Gordon George: Yeah, I helped her and then one year when Nancy McDonald helped with it andToby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: And then after that's when I actually started conducting it all. 18 �Toby Jenkins: So I know that you were very involved with the organization when they bought the building. And you're talking about, for a year we spent renovating. And Christy Frisbee, Sue Welch and some of those folks led some of the- we did it ourselves. Our gay boys were designers and our girls were good with power tools. So we were a perfect match and we did it ourselves, didn't we? You have to. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: And so you spent some time down hereGordon George: Hanging sheet rock and that kinda stuff, yeah. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, ripping up carpet and pushing up old tile. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: And we were proud to have it, weren't we? Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: So you had been in Tulsa for a while. So you'd kind of saw an evolution where we had had smaller centers, that were kinda tucked into hidden places. All of a sudden we were right downtown. Yeah. I know that you also were very involved every time we had the big dances and the big events. Toby Jenkins: You always were in charge of the kitchen and the refreshments and for the fall-a-law ball. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: And the Wild Hearts ball and volunteered at the Equality Gala. So you were very helpful and a very good organizer, especially when it came to setting things up and food service. So you talked about- you got involved with the Thanksgiving dinner. Can you kinda remember some details why we did that, why we had it? Gordon George: It was for people that didn't have families to go to. Toby Jenkins: Okay, and why would they not have had families to go to? Gordon George: A lot of their families disowned them. Toby Jenkins: Right. Gordon George: And I was fortunate enough, my family didn't disown me. Toby Jenkins: Right. And it was on- what day did we do it? Gordon George: Usually Thanksgiving Day. Toby Jenkins: And did you have to cook all the food or where did the food come from? Gordon George: A lot of the food was donated, but there was a couple times that I cooked the turkeys. 19 �Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Right. Gordon George: And I was- back on those days I thought I wouldn't do it today. Toby Jenkins: And so now, for anybody who's familiar with the Equality Center today, we have a commercial kitchen. But in those days ... Gordon George: Oh, no. Toby Jenkins: - we had the kitchen that we put together ourselves. Gordon George: Tiny hole-in-the-wall kitchen. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. And you'd have to serve hundreds of people ... . Okay. Gordon George: I think the most we served was 225. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. And so we talked about this. So we worked with the faith communities that were inclusive and welcoming. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: And they kinda sponsored and would provide all the food. So it was like a massive potluck dinner and you had to coordinate all that. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: And that was all served on Thanksgiving Day. But the food started coming in when? Gordon George: The day before, or ... Toby Jenkins: A couple of days. Yeah. Gordon George: Depends on the organization. Toby Jenkins: And you all would be back there preparing turkeys and hams and ... Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. So- and we not only served people on Thanksgiving Day, we provided to-go meals for people who ... Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: You could call down here and we'd deliver those to you. About how many faith communities were involved, do you remember? Gordon George: Oh, eight, ten maybe. Toby Jenkins: Yeah? Gordon George: Somewhere around there. I don't remember for sure. 20 �Toby Jenkins: Do you remember the year of Muslims for Mercy or the- they were compassionate Muslims. They provided the turkey and it was seasoned with the Middle Eastern flavor. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Okay, so ... Gordon George: That's when I quit cooking turkeys after that. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. But- so we did that, and it was called 'Come Home for the Holidays'. And we'd have a huge turnout. Transgender people who were not allowed to go home and present to their family as they identified. Gay couples who- they might be able to go home but they couldn't bring their boyfriend or their girlfriend home. And then it got to where entire families just came out to show support. And about how many people would help you work on that event. Gordon George: Oh, 15 maybe or 20, depends. Toby Jenkins: And then on Thanksgiving morning, how many people to get it all ready to go? Gordon George: Usually maybe 8 to 10. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: Including my family. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, now tell us about how you got your family, talked into helping with this. Gordon George: I don't remember other than, I was involved with it and I wasn't going to their place. And at that point, my mother had died. So it was- can't go home. Home was changed. So we- I volunteered to keep- from thinking about Thanksgiving at home is no longerToby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: And so they would come here. My dad and my sister and brother-inlaw and my nieces and nephews andToby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: They would all come. At one point, all came involved. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, your brother and his wife. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: And their children, and yeah. Gordon George: Yeah. My brother, when he was alive, he was here when he could. And they lived in Collinsville. So it wasn't- it was easier for them to come and help. 21 �Toby Jenkins: But your sister was coming from where? Gordon George: Near Kansas City. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. And it became a thing for over a decade. Gordon George: Yeah. Until COVID. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: COVID put an end to it. Toby Jenkins: So I know you volunteered with the Equality Gala. Did you volunteer at Pride too? Gordon George: Oh, yeah. I helped in the treasury departments. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: Counted tickets and counted tickets. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Yeah. And that you were always available to help for just so many things that we were doing. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: I know today you're pretty involved in the Oklahomans for Equality's program for senior adults. Do you remember when you began to get involved with that? Originally, I think we called it SAGE butGordon George: I don't remember. It was when we were a smaller group and it was before the remodeling of the event center and the kitchen. It was before that that I was involved with SAGE when we met in the great hall. Toby Jenkins: So about 13, 14 years ago. Gordon George: I don't know. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: Too many years ago to think about. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. And what was your reason for being involved with that? Gordon George: It was an outreach for being around gay people that were my age. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. And much like the work you did with RAIN team and AIDS over the years, we've lost a lot of people who were involved in that program. Many, many, many people. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Tell us some of the things that SAGE would do. Like, did we go see people, check on people? 22 �Gordon George: I wasn't involved in a lot of that. I would just come during the day 'cause of the hours that I worked in the company that I was working for. I worked a lot of nights. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: So I didn't get to attend SAGE as much as I do now. Toby Jenkins: So I know- I wanna bring this up. I know you worked for companies and you understood they had corporate support for non-profits and you were able to get them to support- work here at the Equality Center. Gordon George: Right, they made a donation to us. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Was it Thanksgiving they would sponsor or was it the SAGE program ... Gordon George: No, it was ... - now that you mention it, I don't remember. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: I know they- it was during- it was closer to the holidays, yeah, so. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Yep. So you understood the value of getting corporate support. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: And they were willing to do it, weren't they, that company? Gordon George: Right. And I think that was- it happened a lot, when they had to do some diversity training because of the way I was treated at work. Toby Jenkins: Right. Gordon George: Particularly one, there are two people out there that were hateful. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: And so, they had diversity training and I think that was what brought it out, that they give us money. Or even some of the people who were not happy, that they give the money to us, here. But they had to get over it. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. So that's interesting because presently in 2026, companies, anybody who does any kind of diversity, inclusion or equity or equality efforts, DEI as we call it, that's supposed, now companies are afraid to do that. And of course the administration in the White House has labeled that as woke and bad, and universities, and public institutions, and publicly funded institutions. And we've seen corporations step back from that for fear of retribution. But you knew why diversity training was important personally, because you had experienced discrimination in the workplace? Gordon George: Right, right. Toby Jenkins: And then your company23 �Gordon George: Put a stop to it. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. And said, we need to do more to make sure all of our LGBT employees feel valued. Gordon George: Yeah. And I wasn't the only one at that point. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: There was others that came out. And it wasn't just the level that I was at as far as an employee, there was even higher up. I mean one of the chemists came out. And so, it wasn't just a lowly production worker, so. And there were several. Toby Jenkins: Now just out of curiosity, you've told us your age. You had saw things change, hadn't you, in Oklahoma from when you first got to Tulsa? I know we've talked a lot about your time in Tulsa, so if I've corrected this, you've been here about 45 years in the Tulsa area. I think maybe there were some times you moved away and came back, is-you saw a lot of changes, especially for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and all the different letters of the acronym that we use for the gay community. There's been a lot of changes. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: Right. Do you feel like, from the early days, where your life was pretty private work and gay bars were the dark, private places where we hid away from the general community, we couldn't walk down the street holding hands, we did have pride parades. Do you feel like Tulsa changed and became better? Gordon George: Yes, it improved. It was slow, but it kept improving to the point where it was more comfortable to be out, and OkEq was a big part of that for me to be comfortable on being out. The community was getting more involved. The city itself was becoming more involved. Toby Jenkins: The proclamations of Gay Day in the city and the mayor's backing on some things. Like naming the street Pride Street. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: So- and even to the point, where they named one of the streets of a deceased police officer that was a lesbian. Toby Jenkins: Jennifer Mansell. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: Absolutely. Who was on the Tulsa Police Department and had named a street. That was an incredible day. I remember that. That was our first openly gay person to be her and her wife, who was a Wagner County treasurer, so… 24 �Gordon George: Yeah. And so it really improved a lot in those years until who got in the White House and things. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. And who in the White House? Gordon George: Trump. Toby Jenkins: Right. Gordon George: Donald J. Trump. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Yeah. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: So it's safe to say that whoever we put in the White House, that impacts all of us. Gordon George: Oh, yeah. Toby Jenkins: It changes our world. Gordon George: Especially when they're negative. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. So you saw things improve, and do you think it was because of the visibility? I know Oklahomans for Equality was doing lots of advocacy work, but do you feel like some of it might have been because of the visibility of LGBTQ people, then being more visible and open and out at work and faith communities changing their positions? Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: I mean, when you came to Tulsa, MCC was the only church that had an official mission and dedicated to the LGBT community. There were congregations like 'All Souls' and some other churches that may have been supportive of the community, but even they had not come out with an official policy. You saw that all change where faith communities helped support the Thanksgiving meals and also were a part of the pride parades and were sponsors of the Equality Gala, so. Gordon George: And it continued to grow. The pride parades just kept growing and growing, and more of the community of Tulsa. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Corporations and companies proud to be a part of it. Yeah. So I haven't asked this to anybody else, and I just thought I was gonna- I'm gonna ask this to somebody who's kinda saw things change. Why do you think we have so few gay bars? Because when you first came to Tulsa, there were lots of gay bars. Gordon George: There was. Toby Jenkins: And we now just have just a few left. I think at the time of this interview, I only know of two, Majestic and Eagle, and then I guess Yellow Brick Road probably identifies this. But why do you think things have changed there? 25 �Gordon George: I don't know. I wonder that myself. Why it's- especially as an older adult there's not a whole lot of places that I would go that I would feel comfortable, as a gay bar. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: The Eagle, but I'm not so much into leather and- I'm not so much into going to the bars now, anyway. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: So. Toby Jenkins: Do you think social media and used to, if you wanted a date, you had to go find 'em, right? Gordon George: Uh-huh. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. And the places you found them was at the clubs. And you might meet people at work, but you were afraid to tell somebody at work for fear you're barking up the wrong tree. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: Do you feel like the social media, the dating websites, the mobile apps, the hookup apps. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: Do you feel like that has changed the way we connect and meet people? Gordon George: Oh, yeah. Definitely. Yeah, it was easier to get online and you still had to wonder, okay, is it safe to meet this person or not? Are they gonna beat the hell out of me when I get there? That kinda thing. But social media made a big difference. I don't know if it's so much that- well, I think it's still even more now why the attendance to gay bars is down. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: It's because of social media, people doing- hooking up online. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So you have lived long enough to see things change. You've seen things improve. But you've also saw us having to refight the fightGordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: - for stuff that we fought for. Gordon George: That's ongoing now. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. 26 �Gordon George: All the time, trying to protect the privileges and the rights that we got that they keep trying to roll back. Toby Jenkins: Right. Gordon George: And it's an ongoing battle. Toby Jenkins: Now, as you live your life, you're retired. And I know that you do a lot of volunteer work. So let's talk a little bit about that. And while we talk about that, I wanna know what your experience is. So I notice, let's start with you're branded today. And what is that? Gordon George: It's the ambassador program at the airport. Toby Jenkins: Tulsa International Airport. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: And they are a great organization to volunteer for. And they take care of us quite well. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: They feed us multiple times a year. They're feeding us next month. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: The luncheon. Toby Jenkins: So they do a lot of volunteer appreciation? Gordon George: Oh, yes. Toby Jenkins: Okay. And so today, that we're doing, this is a Tuesday. Did you volunteer today at the airport? Gordon George: Yes, 06:00 AM. Toby Jenkins: Had to be there at 06:00 AM? Gordon George: To 09:00, three hour shifts. Toby Jenkins: And so what do you do? Park planes? Do you scrub planes? What do you do? Gordon George: Well, basically, we just direct traffic for passengers. Toby Jenkins: Oh, okay. Gordon George: Where's the nearest restroom? How do I get through TSA? Where do I take my luggage? That kinda thing. 27 �Toby Jenkins: So you're at an information booth, or? Gordon George: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Okay, alright. Gordon George: Or, as I'm what they call a roamer, which allows me to go in. I can go out on either concourse, A and B, and assist people out there, or assist people getting through TSA. Toby Jenkins: Okay. And what is that experience like? Do you enjoy it? Gordon George: I love it. Toby Jenkins: Do you? Gordon George: It's a great place to people watch. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: A lot of eye candy. Toby Jenkins: A lot of hot, attractive men, okay. Gordon George: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Well, now we know why you do it. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: So you do that how many times a week? Gordon George: I do twice a week, every other week. And then, sometimes on the fifth week of the month, I'll do extra. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, like holiday time, during holiday? Gordon George: I have done holiday extra. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, okay. Do they know you're gay? Gordon George: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Okay. And do they treat you differently? Or do theyGordon George: No. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: No. Toby Jenkins: So do any of you other volunteers say, "Hey, Gordon, do you see that attractive man? Look at that." Gordon George: Oh, the straight women that we talk about. 28 �Toby Jenkins: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so. Everybody's looking, right? Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Okay. How wonderful. And I wanna thank you, on behalf of our community, for being there at the airport. I know that can't be real easy. Okay, so you do that. Toby Jenkins: Okay, so you volunteer at the Tulsa International Airport in the ambassador program. What else do you volunteer with? Gordon George: I help distribute Meals on Wheels. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: I work in the distribution center to help pack the packages that drivers take. I help with that. And then, I also do driving. Toby Jenkins: So you have to drive? Gordon George: The delivery, yes. Toby Jenkins: Yes. And do you enjoy that? Gordon George: That's one day a week. Most of the time. Toby Jenkins: Yeah? And you have to do that regardless of the weather, right? Gordon George: No, they shut us down. The recent weather that we've had? Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: They shut us down. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, but in the middle of a hot summerGordon George: Oh, yeah. Toby Jenkins: - or pouring down rain, you'll still have to do it. Gordon George: Right, right. Toby Jenkins: Okay. And would you encourage people to be a part of that program? Do they need more volunteers? Gordon George: They always need volunteers. Toby Jenkins: Okay. What else do you volunteer with? Gordon George: I volunteer with the SAGE group here. Of course, I do that. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, with the seniors program here. Gordon George: Yeah. And I usher at the PAC in Broken Arrow. 29 �Toby Jenkins: And that's a volunteer position? Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: And what do you do there? Gordon George: Just as an usher. Toby Jenkins: Okay, andGordon George: Directing people to their seats. Toby Jenkins: - you don't get paid? You're just doing it? Gordon George: No. Toby Jenkins: Now, what would be the perks of that? Gordon George: You get to see the shows. Toby Jenkins: So where else is it you volunteer at? We were talking about the Broken Arrow PAC. Gordon George: Oh, so…I just lost my thought. Toby Jenkins: Well, let's talk a little bit about that cause I think we got cut off a little. So you're a volunteer over there. What are the perks about volunteering as an usher at the Broken Arrow Performing Arts Center? Gordon George: Well, I got to see Lily Tomlin. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: And recently was Sandy Patty. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: And other productions. Toby Jenkins: Have you ever been there when KristenChenoweth was there? Gordon George: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, okay. Our only- our little hero we had. Gordon George: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: So that's- would you encourage people to volunteer as ushers at the Performing Arts Center? Gordon George: Right, and they take very little of your time. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: I mean it's not even once a month. 30 �Toby Jenkins: Yeah. Gordon George: 'Cause they have quite a few volunteers, 'cause they will take volunteers any time. Toby Jenkins: Okay. You volunteer still here at the Equality Center. Anything else you volunteer at? Gordon George: Life Senior Services. Toby Jenkins: Okay, and what do you do with them? Gordon George: I mainly just help at their major fundraisers. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Gordon George: I help when they do those. Toby Jenkins: Okay. And tell us a little bit, what is Life Senior Services? Gordon George: It supports adult seniors, and they do so much in the community. They provide housing, they provide daycare for seniors. They don't call it daycare, it's something else. Toby Jenkins: Drop-in? Gordon George: Yeah, where people that can go- they have all kinds of classes. They haveToby Jenkins: Fitness center. Gordon George: Dancing, yeah, all the- bunch of stuff that they do. Toby Jenkins: They help you with your taxes. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: Help you navigate Medicare and finding the right insurance. Gordon George: Right. Yeah. Toby Jenkins: So do you enjoy volunteering with Life Senior Services? Gordon George: Oh, yeah. Toby Jenkins: Do they know you're gay? Gordon George: Well, I would think so. Toby Jenkins: Okay. But you always feel welcome there? Gordon George: Oh, yeah. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Very good. 31 �Gordon George: Not a problem. Toby Jenkins: Okay, so you- I'll say this as a PSA. What you're doing by volunteering and serving our community, the whole community, that does more to help us make sure that we create an inclusive community for LGBTQ people because we're visible and we're helping out where it's needed, instead of silo-ing ourself and isolating ourself. Gordon George: Right. Toby Jenkins: That's my PSA. Do you find that to be true? Gordon George: Yes, and we have several with the senior group here that also are ambassadors. Toby Jenkins: Okay. That do the volunteer programs? Gordon George: Mm-hmm, that do this. Toby Jenkins: Oh, cool, very cool. So let's think about, an archeologist uncovers these archives in a 100 years and he's gonna look at your interview and what message do you want to give to those who come after us. Or maybe young people today who just are not sure how all this came to be. They just think it's always been like this. What would be your message to the future and to people? Young people today about what would you message would you give them? Gordon George: They have privileges that older people have worked for to appreciate those privileges and to work on keeping those privileges and to help support the LGBTQ community and get involved, stay involved. And keep working, 'cause it's never- it's gonna be an uphill battle no matter how long it's gonna be. 'Cause you're always gonna have people that don't like our community and it's gonna be an uphill, ongoing battle. Toby Jenkins: Alright. Gordon George: And keep doing it. Keep the battle going. Toby Jenkins: Anything else? Gordon George: No, I don't think so. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Dennis Neill, the founder of Oklahomans for Equality and Toby Jenkins, we've been present for this interview. We conclude our interview with Gordon George, affectionately known as GG around Oklahomans for Equality. Toby Jenkins: Thank you for tuning in for this broadcast. Gordon George: I appreciate it. Thank you. 32 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2026] Gordon George Interview Description An account of the resource In this conversation, Gordon George shares his life story, detailing his experiences growing up in Kansas, moving to Tulsa, and discovering his identity as a gay man. He reflects on the challenges he faced in school, his involvement in the LGBTQ community, and the impact of the AIDS crisis. Gordon discusses his journey of coming out to his family, the importance of volunteering, and the progress of LGBTQ rights over the years. He emphasizes the need for continued activism and support for future generations. Subject The topic of the resource Gordon George Oral History Project from February 3, 2026 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gordon George, Toby Jenkins, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 3, 2026 2026 AIDS AIDS/HIV Gordon George HIV/AIDs interview OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Toby Jenkins transcript video https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/435bd10a9a8e0b5ef931d948f297090a.mp4 4ef6716f63d546c816ab61a5f578616b https://www.history.okeq.org/files/original/fae96376eec4ca3c281596cf3b6bbca3.pdf b089230dcee36302c98fe3837d5c5760 PDF Text Text Oklahomans for Equality Oral History Interview with Greg Gatewood Interview Conducted by Dennis Neill Date: January 15, 2026 Transcribed By: Dennis Neill using Riverside Studio AI, February 4, 2026 Restrictions: Interviewee requested: N/A Oklahomans for Equality History Project 621 E. 4th Street Tulsa, OK. 74120 918.743.4297 historyproject@okeq.org 1 �About Greg Gatewood Summary In this engaging conversation, Greg Gatewood shares his life story, beginning with his upbringing in rural Wyandotte, Oklahoma. He reflects on his childhood experiences, including his education at Oklahoma State University, where he pursued architecture. Greg discusses the close-knit community of his small school, his involvement in sports, and his early interests in agriculture through the Future Farmers of America (FFA). He also touches on his family dynamics, highlighting the influence of his parents and siblings on his formative years. As the conversation progresses, Greg opens up about his journey of self-discovery regarding his sexual orientation, coming out as a gay man during his time at OSU in the mid-1980s. He recounts the challenges he faced growing up in a religious family and the societal pressures of the time. Greg's narrative shifts to his involvement in the LGBTQ community in Tulsa, detailing his volunteer work at the Tulsa Gay Community Center and his role in organizing Pride events. His reflections provide insight into the evolution of LGBTQ rights and visibility in Oklahoma, showcasing both personal and communal growth over the years. In this episode, the speakers reflect on their experiences and pivotal moments in the LGBTQ+ community, particularly focusing on the establishment and evolution of the Tulsa Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Community Center. They recount a poignant story from November 2000, when a man drove all night to seek refuge and support at the center after coming out to his wife. This encounter highlights the center's role as a safe haven and resource for individuals in crisis. The conversation also 2 �delves into the personal connections formed within the community, including the speakers' own relationship and their involvement in various initiatives, such as the Pyramid Project and Pride events, which aimed to foster inclusivity and support for LGBTQ+ individuals in Tulsa. As the discussion progresses, the speakers share their memories of significant events, including the impact of Matthew Shepard's death on the community and the importance of activism in raising awareness. They reflect on their roles in organizing Pride events and the challenges faced in advocating for LGBTQ+ rights. The episode concludes with a sense of nostalgia and gratitude for the friendships and connections made through their work, emphasizing the ongoing journey toward equality and acceptance. Keywords Greg Gatewood, LGBTQ history, Oklahoma State University, coming out, Pride events, Tulsa Gay Community Center, rural upbringing, architecture, family dynamics, gay rights, LGBTQ+, Tulsa Community Center, Pride events, Matthew Shepard, LGBTQ+ activism, community support, coming out stories, LGBTQ+ history, safe spaces, personal connections Takeaways • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • "I grew up on a farm, small farm." "I was in FFA, Future Farmers of America." "I came out at OSU in 1986." "Growing up religious, there was a lot of guilt." "We wanted to be more visible." "I was volunteer of the year in 97." "We had a very active movie night where we'd show the movies." "I had every intention of going back to Houston when I graduated." "I was in charge of the festival for the 99 Pride." "We chose Boulder Park and moved the date, made it more visible." 'I didn't know where to go. I didn't know what to do.' 'It's just, I don't know what I would have done.' 'Naming is a very big thing.' 'We probably had 300 people there.' 'She was the mother of a lot of gay guys here in Tulsa.' 'That was probably during the Pride of 2007.' 3 �• • • • 'We went to every bar on Friday and Saturday night.' 'I could write some, I could write good too.' 'That really did help that event.' 'It's hard to believe it's been 30 years.' Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Early Life 01:33 Growing Up in Wyandotte, Oklahoma 07:41 College Life at Oklahoma State University 10:41 Coming Out and LGBTQ Identity 23:41 Faith and Family Dynamics 35:34 Building the Honors College and Early Career 36:48 Involvement with TOHR and Early Pride Events 39:39 Challenges and Triumphs of Organizing Pride 41:29 The First Pride Parade: A Pivotal Moment 50:53 The Sign Controversy and Community Response 53:10 Finding a New Home for the Community Center 59:23 Personal Connections: Meeting Carrie and Building Community 01:12:45 Transitioning Leadership and Expanding Pride 01:19:20 Memorable Moments and Community Impact 01:34:02 Reflections on Activism and Legacy __________________________________________________________________________________ 4 �Dennis Neill: I'm Dennis Neill and we're at the Equality Center in the Nancy and Joe McDonald Rainbow Library. It is January the 15th, 2026 and I have the pleasure of interviewing Greg Gatewood. So Greg, would you please state your name and your age and the place you were born? Greg Gatewood: Hi, I'm Greg Gatewood, the age of 60 as of last year, and I was born in Neosho, Missouri. I grew up in rural Oklahoma, Wyandotte, Oklahoma. Dennis Neill: And can you tell us a little bit about your experience growing up in Wyandotte, including your education? Greg Gatewood: Well, I said I grew up in rural Oklahoma, so I grew up on a farm, a small farm. My grandparents had a large farm, a big dairy farm, and they lived next to my other set of grandparents, so I had a lot of land to roam. So I grew up in the country, went to graduate from Wyandotte High School a few years ago in 1983, and then went to Oklahoma State University. Dennis Neill: And what did you major in at Oklahoma State? Greg Gatewood: In architecture. Dennis Neill: And how many years were you at Oklahoma State? Greg Gatewood: The program was five years, the architecture program. I was there six. I took a break because they changed some rules in mid-school year, and getting to professional school was a big decision. Dennis Neill: So talking a little bit more about your early years, what was your involvement with your family, the farm, and then tell us a little bit about the peers that you were growing up with in Wyandotte, what you found pleasurable and some of the unpleasurable experiences as a youth in Wyandotte? Greg Gatewood: Well, I had a good childhood, I mean, overall, I mean, like I said, I grew up in the country, but went to a small school, so we had, in small school Oklahoma, with 50, I think I graduated with 56 people, so you knew everybody, you knew what everyone did, you knew what everyone did last night, you even knew what everyone was going to do tomorrow, because you knew. Always. But growing up, it was, overall, it was good, I played football, I was in FFA, I was always active and, well, I didn't play baseball because we didn't have baseball in Wyandotte. 5 �We had basketball and football in sports, so I played football, basketball one year. I was not coordinated enough to run and shoot at the same time, so I did play football and track one year. That wasn't a good thing for me, but it was FFA, I was very big in FFA, Future Farmers of America, I was in the forestry team, which is, you judge trees. I can tell you, I can look at a tree, I used to be able to look at a tree and tell you the name, the botanical name, could it make pulpwood, could it make saw logs, and was pretty good at it. But I didn't choose that path to be a forester, because you're outside a lot in the winter, so instead I focused on architecture. But always growing up, I was kind of the artistic child. I had an older sibling, he's my late brother, he is like a small version of my father, he's very much similar to my father. My sister is kind of a mix of the two families, I take after my mother's side of the family, so I'm the middle child, I'll just say that, I'm the middle child. But yeah, my siblings, we grew up on a dirt road out in the country, half a mile from the highway, so we rode bikes back and forth on dirt road, horrible, horrible wrecks on that dirt road, I remember once, and more than once, and on lots of hills, we grew up in a very hilly area, so we'd push my sister down on the hood of a car as a sled, for her to test out the chump on that big hill, we still talk about that today. Dennis Neill: Are you still close to your sister? Greg Gatewood: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Dennis Neill: Where does she live? Greg Gatewood: She was in, now she lives in Wyandotte, Oklahoma. She moved back to Wyandotte. Dennis Neill: Now, geographically, place Wyandotte for us? Greg Gatewood: It is near Miami, Oklahoma, in Ottawa County, in an extreme northeast section of Oklahoma, or extreme northeast county. Dennis Neill: So did you ever show farm animals? Greg Gatewood: Oh yeah, well no, no I did not. Although my grandfather was a dairy farmer and my other grandfather was a beef farmer. And I was in FFA, and I knew, I certainly fed the cows and fed the hogs and knew I would do all that. My projects in FFA were trees, because that was just what my brother had gotten into and was very good at. So, and I kind of followed that up. Dennis Neill: And can you tell us a little bit about your parents, what their profession was? 6 �Greg Gatewood: Well, my mom and dad met when my parents, when my dad's parents moved into the big dairy farm next door to my mom's parents. That's how they met. And they moved there in 60, 1960. They got married in 1961. Nine months later, almost to the day, my brother was born. It was a quick honeymoon, it was a productive honeymoon to the day, to the day. I forgot what I was gonna talk about. Dennis Neill: Oh, your professions of your parents. Greg Gatewood: Oh, yeah, but dad was a machinist. He worked at BF Goodrich in Miami, Oklahoma for years until it shut down in 86. Then he moved and worked in Springfield and finished up his career in Tamco, which is in Joplin, Missouri, as a machinist. Mom, she graduated from NEO A&M in Miami and was born in Tonkawa, Oklahoma. He grew up to be a son of seven siblings. He's the middle son, too. But then I grew up on a dairy farm, obviously. My mom grew up in rural Oklahoma as well. She met my dad when they moved in next door. Greg Gatewood: She's been a homemaker, she's been, for the majority of her life, she was secretary at Wyandotte Public Schools, elementary school, and at that time in the 70s, you weren't just secretary, you were like the secretary, the nurse, the counselor, because it's a small school, they didn't have a nurse, so if a child got hurt, the secretary took care of that. So she was kinda all that, retired from that. Dennis Neill: I'm sorry, what year did you start at OSU? I started at OSU in 1984. Dennis Neill: Okay, and tell us a little bit about your time at OSU, where you lived, were you part of a fraternity, other social organizations, and your overall experience while you were at Oklahoma State. Greg Gatewood: Well, I started at OSU, at Oklahoma State University for folks in, like I said, 1984, I went to, I'd had a year, first went to NEO A&M in Miami, I had a scholarship there. So I was just 15 miles from the house, but then I went, I enrolled there, and they said, well, there's no, you need to get down to Stillwater. So I went on down there just after one year at NEO. And going there, I lived in Bennett Hall, lived in, because I was choosing a more economical path, I went into an un-airconditioned dorm. It was one of the largest dorms when it was built, largest dorm in the US. It was over five miles of hallways, it's a big dorm. And it was a dorm then, it was a dorm. But great times, OSU was really good. The dorm life there, other than Bennett Hall, for two years, had a great time. Turned out, turns out that seven of the guys on that floor, on my floor alone, are now out gay men, in Tulsa. Dennis Neill: Oh, wow. 7 �Greg Gatewood: Yeah, there's quite a few of us on my floor. But, of course, I majored in architecture. That meant you spent most of your time in architecture studio, in the architecture building. In fact, if you didn't spend enough time according to the professors, they would happily fill out the drop slip for you and leave it on your desk, and when you found it, you were expected to drop. So, we spent four hours in studio every day. And that's class time, and then you're expected to spend probably four to five more hours every day in studio. Dennis Neill: Were you in the old armory? Greg Gatewood: Yeah, the old armory. Yeah, yeah. Now it's been really built, they've added two big additions on now that we just had a simple, seemed like an unheated studio to do our work in. Dennis Neill: You mentioned your floor mates. Are you still in touch with any of them that have moved to Tulsa? Greg Gatewood: Not really, well, there's a few. Well, there's, on my floor, there was Brad Mulholland, Tim Brown, Michael Smith, Randy Jones, Michael and Tim were roommates down at the end of the hall. And then Brad was in the center, Randy was in the center, and then there was a couple of them in, the Rotsi guy, I can't remember his name. But, they're all living in Tulsa. We're not close, but I know who they are. Keep in touch with them and stuff. Dennis Neill: So how do you identify as far as your orientation? Greg Gatewod: Oh, as gay, as a gay man, which, speaking of Oklahoma State, I go to college, I was gonna talk about that. I keep in contact more, that's when I went out. I came out at OSU in the, probably in 86, I think, so I would be 21, you know. Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, that was 1986. Dennis Neill: So prior to that, what kind of led up to you deciding that it was time to come out? Talk a little bit about your feelings and how it developed over time until that point in 1986. Greg Gatewood: Well, that can bring up all kinds of things there. I grew up in a very religious family. Dennis Neill: What faith? 8 �Greg Gatewood: Methodist, Methodist. In fact, the Methodist church that I grew up in is now no longer Methodist because of the gay issue. They left the Methodist denomination a couple years ago, which my brother and my father and my mother and my sister of all, my family, all voted to leave Methodist church after I'd been out for, you know, I don't know, 30 years. So, but anyway, that's another subject. But yeah, so growing up religious is, there was, because I figured, I realized I was gay or was attracted to guys, probably in eighth grade, if I remember correctly, Gino Fleener. Not that I remember the name. but yeah, I remember that. But that's for, so growing up, I was, I never really had any girlfriends. I knew if I needed a date to the prom, I could date. But I didn't really have any girlfriends at all, growing up or ever. So I think I may have been called Gay Gator. Gator was my name, nickname growing up. Greg Gatewood: My brother was called Gator. My uncle was called Gator. It was just a tradition that the Gatewood boys were called Gator. My sister was called Little Gator. But anyway, so at one point I remember I was called Gay Gator. And this was in, I was in junior high, so in the 70s, yeah. But I also had, I came from a good family in that county. I came from the Gatewood family, which in the rural Oklahoma, it matters why your last name is. But the Gatewoods…and you could, you had the right name, the right last name. Greg Gatewood: Because my family were big farmers, everybody knew the Gatewoods in that county. So I was, I could, I played football. That was good, I was in FFA. I didn't, I didn't have any girlfriends. I was pretty sure I was gay. I can't remember if I really had a word. You had thoughts. But no actions. I didn't really have a problem, I didn't think of it growing up, I guess. I mean, I thought of it, I definitely thought of it, but then you'd have severe guilt. And then, and then I went to college at OSU. So when you went to, you went to university, you know, you're out and alone. You're out on yourself, by yourself for the first time. I was in a dorm room for the first time, or living on my own for the first time. Well, I remember this is, in a dorm room, just bored, or not bored, but I had, the first two weeks, I didn't have a roommate there, my first year there, but then I got one. Then I got a roommate, and he was good at architecture too, which is good, and I thought that was good. And it turned out that we were in the same class, one of the architecture 2,003 in class, and I was reading his notes, and then at the end of that notebook was a pretty descriptive story of earlier that afternoon in our dorm room, and it turned out he was a closet gay guy. And I learned a lot, or not learned a lot, but I recognized that from his story in this classroom notebook and he moved out very shortly after. After that he was moved to a different dorm. 9 �But, like I said, there's a lot of I don't know. It was in at OSU, my first semester. I would say there that I met some guys and became friends with them, became friends. I have some really good friends. They're still my best friends. They're from college. Dennis Neill: How about, while you were at OSU, were you involved in? Was there like an LGBTQ group there? Greg Gatewood: Well, there's, I have a lot of friends. It was in the 80s and it's still our Oklahoma. There was a group now. Well, like I said, I came out, there was there's. Was it Boomer Lake? I don't know why Stillwater has a lake called Boomer Lake, but there's Boomer Lake and there's shelter number six and that's where all those gay guys that were out and some that weren't- that's a lot that weren't. We'd just hang out. Greg Gatewood: So we'd go and hang out to shelter number six and just hang out and there'd be- there could be- 20-30 guys under 21 because we were too young to go to bars. Then this is so we'd just be hanging out there and just you know, just your college guys, for the love of God. And that's when there was Richard Gordon, who is a still friend of mine, who's in Dallas now. He was president of students for Homosexual Awareness, which was a gay group in Stillwater's student group with not, admittedly, not the best name in the world- students for Homosexual Awareness- but he would go around to psych classes and human sexuality classes and this is in the mid 80s, 85,, 86, and talk about being gay and and was proud. I mean he was very out, he was very out. He grew up here in Tulsa. I was, I was out from, well, definitely my sophomore year I was pretty much out, but not necessarily to my family, but everybody in Stillwater. I didn't come out necessarily and tell people, but just your friends, there was in the student union in the food court. We had a and there may have been some hollering students and stuff. You could. You could pretty much tell yeah, that's a gay table, it's a table of gay guys because they tend to holler at other guys. We didn't care, we really didn't care if they knew, but yeah, so Richard was the president, student for homosexual awareness and a brave, brave individual, very brave. Dennis Neill: So was it a recognized student…? Greg Gatewood: I don't know if it was a recognized student group Dennis Neill: But like, did you all have regular meetings? There were none students … we would have a meeting, I think at a speaker perhaps. So it may have been a recognized. It probably was a recognized group. Dennis Neill: So where did you meet? 10 �Greg Gatewood: Usually in a classroom. There was a classroom building and there would be in one of those classrooms usually. So I only went to a couple of meetings. Dennis Neill: You talked about the table where you all would gather. Were you ever really harassed while you were on campus about being gay or any of these members that were associated? Do you think it was a welcoming environment or just kind of a…? Greg Gatewood: Well, I think people knew because they're not stupid and you could tell. I mean Randy Jones and Eric- I can't remember his last name- they would go, they both knew French, so they were talking in French with an Arkansas twang. It was odd and there would be some gay innuendos in those things, in those things they would say so we just had a good time. But there was some speaking for myself, I'm sure there was. I'm just I'm sure there was, but speaking for myself, I didn't. I've never had too much of anti-gay backlash directly at me because one I'm 6'1 and I just, I've never had that as much as some guys have. Except when I fully came out, it was third year, I think, in architecture, and you're divided into classes, and you're different years. And Richard came up to me, he came to the studio one night, and he, of course, everyone knew Richard Gordon because he went around to classes and spoke. And he was like, a bunch of us are going to Bobo's. Bobo's is a Mexican restaurant in Stillwater at that point. We're going to Bobo's to have margaritas, you wanna go? It's like 11 o'clock at night at the studio. So I was like, sure, I'll go. So I dropped everything, go, we start going down the hallway, or get down the first floor, I come back up, because I'd forgotten my keys. The entire class, 40 people, or about 40 people, were sitting around, had gathered around someone's desk, it was close to mine, they had gathered around that desk, and were talking. I could tell, I could hear it, because this was probably a couple of minutes after I'd left, came back up there because I'd forgotten my keys and couldn't go. They were all talking about me because they'd seen that Richard Gordon, who was a known gay guy, came and got me, and we were going out to drinks. So that was a topic of discussion, that was, I think, my third year. But I didn't get any blowback and flak about that. I mean, I'm sure there were closeted gay guys in that class at that point. I would lay money on it. Dennis Neill: Do you know, did the Students for Homosexual Awareness had a faculty advisor? Greg Gatewood: I don't, I don't believe so, off the top of my head, but I'm not for sure. There was, my last year in architecture at OSU, there was a gay professor who was closeted, semi-closeted, but semi-out. And then, now I think about the first, one of the first 11 �openly gay guys that I saw at OSU was because I saw his TOHR sticker on his banner in the studio, and that was, if I can remember his name, Roger Barton. Dennis Neill: What did he, he was a professor? Greg Gatewood: No, he was a student. He was an architecture student. He was a little older guy, but he had a TOHR sticker on his area, in your desk when you worked, in your studio. Dennis Neill: He must have been from Tulsa. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, he was from Tulsa, and I think at that time it was TOHR. Dennis Neill: I wonder if he's still around? Greg Gatewood: I don't know, I don't know, because I hadn't thought of his name until just now. But that was in, yeah, 84, 84, spring of 84, spring of 85, and it was clear, he was out. He would bring his partner up to the studio. He didn't care. Dennis Neill: So, to reflect back a little bit on, you mentioned the Methodist church that you grew up on, very conservative. So, walk us through a little bit about your experience with religion and faith, both your own and then with your family, and then as you've progressed through life, what is your feeling about being out in your faith community, and has it been an issue within the circle of your family and friends? Greg Gatewood: Well, growing up in Oklahoma, Oklahoma's, you know, lots of people, or faith is a major thing in a lot of people's lives, and faith is an obstacle, maybe an obstacle in a lot of people's lives. Like I said, I grew up Methodist, but the church was affiliated Methodist. Growing up, we had an Assembly of God preacher. So, it was more of a, Assembly of God slant, I guess, because, you know, there was speaking in tongues. That, and it was a country, very much a country church. Of course, growing up, I kind of figured, like I said, when I, probably eighth grade, I remember thinking, you know, I'm different. I'm attracted to guys. And you didn't hear much about the, and I don't recall hearing much about that in church growing up, as far as, if I did, it was gonna be bad, I can almost guarantee that. But only in recent years. So I came out in the 80s. I came out to my family in the early 90s completely. Fully. A couple years after graduation from OSU. I stopped going to the church I grew up in when Monte Sundy, the preacher, went on a rant of anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-Muslim, so much other stuff. I was like, I'm never going to go there. And I haven’ stepped foot in that church again except for… 12 �Dennis Neill: And how old were you then? Greg Gatewood: Probably in my 40s. It's been over a decade. I've gone back for a funeral. But that's the only reason. Dennis Neill: And this is your home church? Greg Gatewood: Yeah, the home church. It was Sycamore Chapel, United Methodist Church. Little country church. But my grandfather, the big, dirty farmer, gave acreage so he could build the park and stuff. Or the fellowship hall and stuff. Although he went to a different church. Growing up with a strong religious background, and then coming to realize that you're attracted to guys. And then the guilt. And if you would, just by thinking about stuff, the guilt. I graduated high school in 83. I was going to church. I was in high school in the 80s, almost 70s. High school in the 80s. And also in the 80s, AIDS hit big time. It was in the news a lot. So that was another whole other factor on that. I remember things being told, in my family, at family gatherings about AIDS killing all the right people. After I came out, I heard, you'll just get AIDS and die from family members. And there's a lot of religious aspects of that. When the first time I came out, or the first time that Kerry came with me to some family wedding, I think my brother and my cousin talked to me. And I probably had 25 people there, those family members. They just refused to talk to me. Still to this day. But it's gotten better over 26 years. Dennis Neill: So are your parents still alive? Greg Gatewood: Yeah, both of them are, yes. Both are in their mid-80s. Dennis Neill: And have they accepted where you are? Greg Gatewood: Yeah, it's gotten better, it's gotten better. I mean, like I said, Sycamore Chapel United Methodist Church is now Sycamore Chapel Church because they left the Methodist Church because, as I pointed out, they hate gay people. I kind of told them that. Because I left the Methodist Church. I was required to send a letter. And I was kind of blunt in that letter. But yeah, when the church I grew up in, and I'm not, at this point in my life, no, I'm not religious at all. I mean, point blank. Dennis Neill: So take us, you graduated what year from OSU? Greg Gatewood: 1990. Dennis Neill: Okay, and then take us through the next few years. How have you developed? 13 �Greg Gatewood: Well, in the summer of 89, I lived in Houston. I had every intention of going back to Houston when I graduated, every intention. Dennis Neill: Were you interning down there? Greg Gatewood: Yeah, I interned that summer down there. My uncle had an architectural engineering firm, and he got me a job, basically, at an architecture firm. So I worked for them for a summer. I had an apartment there for a summer. I had every intention, one, desire to go back because I had a lot of fun in Houston that summer. And I implored him to go back, but that didn't work out. It wasn't just, architecture wasn't hiring, necessarily. It wasn't really good in 1990. So I ended up in Tulsa. I moved, I graduated on May 4th and started my job on June 4th. So that's how much time I've given myself a month to get a job. So I started there, moved here, had a, was dating someone at that point that lived in Tulsa. That didn't last very long. It seems like when I first moved to Tulsa, I would move apartments about every year. I moved to a lot of apartments. I lived downtown. Before downtown was popular, I was downtown at 8th and Cincinnati, way before anyone was. That building's no longer here. They tore it down after we remodeled the building. Mark Henry's parents, or dad, owned it. He owned it, and we remodeled that building, he tore it down. Dennis Neill: I remember that building, because he lived there for a while. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, he lived there, he lived right down below. Yeah, we filled it up with an architecture student friend of mine, a young girl, and then an older lady lived on the third floor, too, and four gay guys. And then they announced they were gonna close the building down, and we all moved out. After I'd recruited Michelle, my college classmate, to move down there. We should've moved down there in less than two months, and we all moved, because they were gonna tear the building down. Anyway, I digress. But yeah, I moved to Tulsa in 1990. I was out at that point, I was an out gay man. But I'd go to bars and stuff like that. And then, I remember the first time I went, and I don't know if I've told you this before, I maybe have, Tulsa was getting ready to do a, what's it, discrimination ordinance in the city of Tulsa, maybe, at some level, for the city of Tulsa. And it was in the news, and there were meetings. And I went, I think it was at the library or the civic center, it was you and Nancy McDonald and some other people on the stage. And there was a large group of people, and lots of screaming and yelling. Dennis Neill: Worst time of my life. 14 �Greg Gatewood: Yelling, screaming, gnashing of teeth. There was, I'll never forget that meeting. Dennis Neill: I won't either. Greg Gatewood: And that was in 93, 94? Dennis Neill: 1994. Greg Gatewood: And yeah, I remember that. And that was when I was like, huh. So I started volunteering in, I think it was 96. Dennis Neill: And where were we located then? Greg Gatewood: TOHR offices were at 41st and Harvard. Yeah, they were at 41st and Harvard in the pink, no they're not pink. Yeah. Dennis Neill: So you came aboard right about as they were … Greg Gatewood: Right before they moved to the first Pride Center. Dennis Neill: So were you involved in the move to…? Greg Gatewood: I, well, like I said, I first volunteered at that little office, and then they moved the center. I kind of lost track of, I think. I was, I had a other boyfriend at that point. We donated money, I think, for the new center. But I didn't go, but then I started volunteering. It opened in 96, didn't it? Yeah, the first center opened in 96. And I think I started volunteering there in 97. Dennis Neill: When you were on 41st and Harvard, was that to work the hotline? Greg Gatewood: Yeah, yeah, the little hotline. And they had a community room too, I think, maybe. They had meetings. But it was a little hotline, little small little room. And I remember there was, I think there was a dry erase board with numbers written on it, maybe. And there was sheets, maybe, you know. Dennis Neill: And were we still just doing the hotline in the evenings? Greg Gatewood: Hotline in the evenings, yeah, six to nine, I think. Or six to 10, maybe. Dennis Neill: We would respond to any messages, right, that were left on the answering machine, and all that, that's interesting. So when you came here and you got involved with this architectural firm, are there some projects that are notable that you were involved with? In architecture? 15 �Greg Gatewood: Oh my, that I want to lay claim to? Dennis Neill: Were you kind of residential, commercial, or? Greg Gatewood: My architecture firm, the architecture firms that I worked for, or the main one I worked for a long time, or the one that I worked for nine years, focused more on commercial. So if there's a St. Louis building, or now Panera Bread, a Panera Bread in Tulsa, or a Homeland that's now closed, or Reasers, I probably worked on it at some point, because we did Reasers and Homelands, and Panera Breads, and lots of apartment complexes. If you see a red case, cube. Dennis Neill: Oh yeah, Case Property. Greg Gatewood: We did a lot of Case Property stuff, so little fences and fence sets. This is in the early 90s. Not a lot of buildings were being built, by any means, but little fences and fence sets around apartment buildings. Remodels of apartment complexes, remodels of apartment buildings, remodels of grocery stores, Reasers, all kinds of stuff like that. In office build-outs, office appearance. Dennis Neill: So you were with them until 1999? Greg Gatewood: 1999, then I moved to, or 98. Moved to a lot of Christian Shore, which is another firm, which is a firm here in town. And I did, my main building there was, I did an OU, the OU Honors College. It was good, it was for the Honors College. David Boren was president. We did a little addition to the Honors College and they're close, close to the, I think it's close to the stadium, football stadium there. Dennis Neill: So were you out in your work environment as well? Greg Gatewood: I guess, yeah. Dennis Neill: Any issues? Greg Gatewood: No, in the architecture world, it's kind of not expected, but, but, but, you know, gonna run into one or two at least. Dennis Neill: Yeah. Greg Gatewood: I think there's, even in architecture, there were two gay guys, almost at all points, at all times, there were two gay guys or a gay guy and a lesbian working there all the time. I don't know why. Dennis Neill: So your rich history with TOHR started in 1996, it sounds like, correct? 16 �Greg Gatewood: It must have, yeah. Dennis Neill: So kind of walk us through that, and of course, really highlight your involvement with getting the first Pride permit and your involvement from that point on. Greg Gatewood: Oh, we're gonna go over an hour now. Okay. Dennis Neill: No, we're actually only at 36 minutes. Greg Gatewood: I thought I'd been rambling and making no sense. Okay, oh goodness. So like I said, you saw I started volunteering in 96, it was the center, or not the center, it was the offices, and then when I moved to the first center, the Pride Center, at 38th and Peoria, I remember Steve Horn, Steve Horn was a volunteer coordinator at that point. Greg Gatewood: He was the president the next year, but I think Tom Neal was president, I think, when it was down there, I'm gonna say. Dennis Neill: I think that's correct. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, yeah, because, yeah, I started volunteering there on Tuesday nights, once a week. Then I started coming down there and they wanted to do other things, I'd come down and start doing some other stuff, volunteered for Pride, I think it was 97, yeah, when Pride was at Owen Park for a couple years. I think that's because Toby has told me this, he's like, I was told to tell him to do trash stuff at Owen Park, I don't recall that at all, so it must have been, had to be 97, but that was the first year I think of Pride, it was 97, but was volunteer of the year in 97, started doing some other stuff down there at the center, then joined the board in 1998. 1998 was a very memorable year for TOHR, now OkEq, because it was my first year on the board, we had taken over store, the Pride store was in there, it was run by somebody else at that point, until that point, but TOHR bought them out. So when I became a board member, I and Steve Horn and Ken Southern, that was later in the year, we started spending a lot of time trying to get the center, we had that store, we wanted to make it profitable, that was a source of income. I think we were making six or seven hundred dollars a month off the store, and that was, we needed the money. But in 1998 also, as a new board member, the biggest decision I ever made at that point was HOPE, we spun off HOPE in the first couple months of that year. There were some financial difficulties or improprieties, you might say, and some dangers that could have happened. 17 �So there was a board meeting in which HOPE, which is Health, then it was HIV Outreach Prevention Education, but now it's Health, I think Health Outreach Prevention Education, it was a program of TOHR, saying that there had been some issues going on, and so it was in the best interest for it to be split off into its own non-profit, because to be honest, from what was I told from state office people, or state office, state people, that if something didn't happen, then the state would close you down. So, it was split off. That was in 98, probably February, March, it was early 98. That was, yeah, that was split off. Lost a couple board members over that because… it was a long-time board member walked out of the room then. So it was tumultuous. But I think since that happened, both TOHR now OkEq, and HOPE have now both grown in different, I mean, I think HOPE is doing good up to OkEq, HOPE is now where, look where they are. Look where OkEq is and Hope. But yeah, that was a tough decision. But then Pride started, of course you had the center. I think the center, it was called the Pride Center at that point, unofficially. Everyone in the gay community center movement was renaming their centers then. So we renamed it the Tulsa Gay Community Services Center. Again, bad name. And I can show the logo, I'm sure it says, but anyway, we called it that then, we called it that. And then we started to have, first we had Pride. We were gonna have, it was in June, so we were gonna change, one, we wanted to change it and become way more visible. Me, Steve Horn and Rick Martin. So we decided we're gonna, instead of Owen Park or Mohawk Park, we just like, we wanted it to be more visible. It's like, the city gave us three choices, I think was, what's it, [Boulder Park[ it's called Dream Keepers Park now. Dream Keepers Park was a choice. A park, Haikey Creek Park, believe it or not, was also a choice somehow, but that was a county park. And some park, I think it's the park out at like 61st and Memorial in that area. There's a park in there, that was a choice we had. We could have it at Owen Park if we had the boy scouts park cars, and you didn't want that at that point. So we chose Boulder Park and moved the date and moved the location, made it more visible. And there have been marches going on in 96 and, I think, no, the first one was in 97, maybe, I think, the march at Owen Park. 98 was gonna be the second march. So Rick started doing stuff for the march. And so he has marches the short ways, I think from downtown somewhere to Boulder Park or Dream Keepers Park. And when Rick was getting, or talking to somebody, I don't know if you had a permit or not for to walk on the sidewalks, but the police chief at that point asked him, well, why aren't you all having a parade? And this is in 98, and probably two or three weeks before the actual date of parade. So, but yeah, parade, so you can't really pull off a parade in two 18 �weeks, because it's been tried. Can't get a permit. But we did start, it's like, well, it's gonna happen the next year. So before 98 Pride had happened, plans were already talked about for a parade in 99. So as soon as that was over, we started plans for 99 and the first parade. And we kind of lucked out, because we had a very dedicated group of people that were doing stuff. One reason is because, not only is that the one reason, there were multiple reasons. In 98, we had decided as a board that we need to increase TOHR's visibility and name and presence of doing things. So we decided to have an event every month for the next 12 months. Greg Gatewood: And you had a lot of stuff, we had Halloween parties. I mean, we didn't have the business or the huge crowds, but Halloween parties to Superbowl parties to all kinds of little gatherings. And we spent so much time. But that, but Pride was rolling around. And so we changed locations for Dream Keepers Park. And we sent out a letter. I was in charge of booths, so I started sending out letters to businesses. I got some very positive feedback from some local businesses and gay groups. And started relationships with Budweiser and various things. Greg Gatewood: So in 99, well after 98 was over, we started playing from 99. And we were fortunate that we got…He was Parade Chair, well Mitch was Parade Chair, Mitch Savage was Parade Chair. He hired Ken Southerd, who was a long-time volunteer with TOHR at that point. He basically hired him to do the parade. And then we had, oh my lordy, I forgot about that, we had Barney Frank, who was the only out, who was the first out gay congressman in the United States. And we had him as a, we were talking, it was like, who can we get as Parade, Grand Marshal, he's gonna draw name interest that we can, you know, not pay, because we need this to be free. Greg Gatewood: So we had, someone wrote Barney Frank, and he accepted. So we had people, he accepted, we didn't have to pay him, we didn't have to pay him, we don't pay him. But we did fly him first class, so we had people trade in their points, so we could bump him up to first class. That was probably Mitch, I think, or behind the scenes, Mitch and Ken did a lot of work in, for the parade, for the parade, massive amounts. Dennis Neill: And do you remember who reached out…Who came up with the idea and reached out to Barney. Greg Gatewood: I don't know, we were probably some planning meeting. Yeah. I don't know who, whose idea it was, but the, of course, when he accepted, and I was, what was good about that weekend, because he was a big, I was his host. Me and B.J. Kissinger, I think, from the Democratic Party, were his co-hosts, so everywhere that Barney went, we 19 �had to be. I had hit my knee, sat in for pride that day, when Barney got in, I'd hit it with a, by a soccer goal down at the park. We were moving it, it hit my knee, bumped it, it's swollen up to the size of a softball by the next day. So I was hobbling around. I got a really bad sunburn. I'll never forget that year. I got a bad sunburn from setting up. We had that for dinner that night with Barney Frank. I was sunburned really bad. Yeah, that was the first, that was, to me, in my mind, that's the first gala we had, actually. Dennis Neill: Yeah, and if I recall right, and correct me if I'm wrong, Greg, it seems like the dinner was at Greenwood Cultural Center. Greg Gatewood: Greenwood Cultural Center, yes. That was in, we partnered with Cimarron Alliance to get that building, to get that dinner done. It was at Greenwood Cultural Center. And I think, I will say, I know we charged $75 a ticket, and then more, I think it was $50 more for the reception beforehand. And then it was at Greenwood Cultural Center, we were probably, me and Tim Williams, AFAB catering, catered it. We had a good turnout, we had a good turnout. Dennis Neill: And it seems like I remember, didn't we walk from there to reception at OSU, or? Greg Gatewood: Yeah, there was reception, yeah, there was, yeah, there was reception at OSU, yeah. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, and then their dinner was at Greenwood. Dennis Neill: Okay, so it was first, yeah, reception first. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, it was reception, I think, I think, I can't remember. I remember, I was dressed in a tux, I had a really bad sunburn, And it was, and I was with Marty, and my knee was hobbling. But that was, yeah, that was a very memorable year. 1999, the next, and then, of course, the next day, we had an interfaith breakfast at 7 o'clock in the morning, for some unknown reason, on a Sunday. I think Barney had to fly out early, that's because we, so, yeah. Dennis Neill: So what was your actual title with regard to that, 1999? Greg Gatewood: Oh, I was in 99, oh, in 99, I was the first vice president of TOHR at that point, but I was, it was for the, what did I do? I may have been in charge of the festival. Dennis Neill: And you have an interesting story about when the sign first went up on Brookside, do you want to share that story? 20 �Greg Gatewood: Okay, that was in 98, that was in 98. In 1998, like I said, we had moved Pride to Dream Keepers Park because we wanted to be more visible. But we also wanted to put a sign on the building to be visible. So we made a sign, it said, gay, in letters that were like this tall, Gay Community Center and Pride Store. On one label on each side of the street, one on Peoria and one on 38th Street. But when that label came in, we were going to hang it up. This is me again, me, Steve Horn, and Rick Daniels. We did a lot in 1998. We got, the banners came in, and we decided to hang them up. We hung them up from the, we got on the roof, we hung them up, we had the Pride flag on the flagpoles up the roof. We hung up one banner on 38th Street, we hung up the other banner on Peoria. And we were up on the roof, and we were getting ready. And I said, I told Rick and Daniel, I was like, you know, we've, this is going to cause a wreck. This is going to cause, because we're on Peoria, something's going to happen. And we hadn't, we barely got on the roof, it hadn't been ten minutes, if not five. Greg Gatewood: And screeching of tires, metal clad, there was a wreck, directly in front of the center. And I swear, it had to be the signs, it had to be the signs. Those signs caused some issues later on. Dennis Neill: speaking of those signs. Can you review that with us a little bit, about Kerry’s involvement in that, because I recall, it seems like Mark Bonney might have been involved in that dispute too. Gret Gatewood: Yeah, there was a guy, well I don't know much about the law thing, what happened there. But I was just, yeah, yeah, the signs, we hung up the signs, yeah, kind of, well, we hung up the signs, because we want to be visible, we hung up the signs. We got kicked out, we lost our lease because we hung up the signs. And there was, like you said, Kerry, my husband, an attorney, and Mark Bonney, an attorney, were in legal, I know they, I know, I really couldn't say what all was done by, what they all did by, because I wasn't privy to all that. Dennis Neill: So were you involved when we found the new space there on 21st? Greg Gatewood: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Dennis Neill: And talk a little bit about that, the move and how you located that property. Greg Gatewood: Well, I had, Steve had left, that was in 2000, yeah. Steve and his boyfriend had moved to Denver, I think, and right after Pride night, right after the first parade, they moved. Dennis Neill: Steve Horn? 21 �Greg Gatewood: Steve Horn, yeah, they moved, so I became president then. And that's when all that was going, that's when all that was going, the other people handled all the legal stuff. We had to find, we had a year, I guess, yeah, we had a year, but we didn't move until 2000. But because we lost the lease, and there was a legal battle, we ended up moving, having to move. We found the place at 21st and Memorial. One, it was very economical, it was all bills paid, and quite economical. It needed a lot of work. It was kind of half down, and it was hard to describe. Because you came in, and you had to go down steps on either side, you had to go down. The accessible pathway was kind of a nightmare to get there. But when we leased that, I remember I was president. One of the things I remember about that is the different spaces we looked at, that was gonna be the best. We had to do a lot of work to it. So we had some donors, myself and another Kerry. Paint, paint, paint, paint. We painted that building, painted the interiors, but had donors cover the cost of that. When we moved into that building, it was in October of 2000. Yeah, it was October 2000, as I had just left an architecture firm I was with that morning. Well, not that morning, but earlier that month. Why did you ask me about the new space? Dennis Neill: What are your fond memories of being in that space? Oh, well, maybe not just all fond. I mean, I remember it being very smoky because of the... Greg Gatewood: The only place it was next to a bar. A lesbian bar. Dennis Neill Was it TNT's? Greg Gatewood: Was it TNT's? Yeah, I think it was TNT's. I forgot about that. Dennis Neill: The other thing I remember is, one, we had a very active movie night where we'd show the movies and have a decent number of people coming in. Dennis Neill: And then, didn't Open Arms kind of get engaged? Greg Gatewood: Oh, yeah, I forgot. Dennis Neill: Did they start there? Greg Gatewood: They did start there. Yeah, because, well, that place. We moved there in October of 2000. Yeah, Open Arms got involved. Ken had an office over there, and they had a youth group. It was a youth group. They started in there, in that area over on the left, on the right side. Whatever direction that was. 22 �Yeah, there were movie nights. We had the Pride store. We had the quarterly or we had membership meetings every month, I think, so we had to try to have a program. But on that building in particular, in that space, there was one vivid memory is Election Day 2000 because I'd gone down to the center to do some stuff. I can't remember. It was snowing. It was a cold day in 2000 on Election Day. I'd gone to the center. I was doing something, and I got a call. This man had called, and he had driven all night from, I think, Wisconsin somewhere. He had some friends from ORU, and he'd come out as gay to his wife, and he had friends in ORU. He knew he could stay with them. His little car was packed to the brim with everything he had. So he called the center. We were closed because it was in the morning. I said, well, come on down. Come to the center. We have a library. He asked about books and stuff. So he came to the library or came to the center, and he read a couple books while there, took two or three more home, and lent them out. I think we went to lunch because it was Election Day, and I had things to do. And, of course, it was Election Day when Bush 2 got elected. But I remember when he came in, he spent probably four hours total at the center. He had spent all afternoon. When he left, he's like, well, you have no idea how much this helped. He's like, I didn't know where to go. I didn't know what to do. He looked in the phone book, found the gay hotline or whatever it was. We were what that point we were called because, yeah, I forgot about that. When we moved into that place, I was quite intimate, and I was president at that point, that it would be called the Tulsa Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Community Center, and it was all being put out there, spelled out. That was also being trimmed. You wanted to spell it out, which we did. So he may have found that in the phone book at that point. But, yeah, he came in. He's like, these books and just being able to come here and talk. We talked for a while, too. He's like, it's just, I don't know what I would have done. It was kind of alluring to a bad thing. But that was in November 2000. We had just moved. We had been there a month. So probably not even a month. Dennis Neill: I noticed something you put in your bio about something that also happened that was important in 1999. If I've read this right, that's where you first met Kerry. Greg Gatewood: Oh, yes. Dennis Neill: Can you talk about that a little bit? Greg Gatewood: Yeah, well, yeah, Kerry, we met. Well, we disagreed on this last time I was writing that. I was like, was it a board meeting? Or, because he joined the board in 1999. 23 �Yeah, when he joined the board, we met. Or a membership meeting or a board meeting, we met in 1999. We started in 1999. We actually, now that I think about it, before we were officially dating, we went to Starbucks at 51st and Harvard because we were on the board. And we had a board retreat with Mitch. And he told us about the SWOT analysis. This is a new thing for all of us. So being like Kerry and I went to Starbucks to write the mission statement. Because there were purposes and stuff, but there was not really, to our knowledge, we couldn't find it anywhere, a written mission statement. So at our little board retreat, Kerry was there and we had a little thing, a practice you said, write down something emotional or something, I can't remember what it was, mine was adult living in fear, a teenager near suicide. Greg Gatewood: And that's, and Kerry, I can't remember what he'd written down, but we were chosen to, well it's like, why don't you all take the stuff that everyone suggested and compose some type of statement, mission statement. And that's where, at that point, Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights, works for equality, through et cetera. And that's, because at that point it was through, we listed all that, but the adult living in fear, teenager near suicide was kind of an emotional case statement where we started from. Greg Gatewood: But Kerry and I, that's when we met, was either a membership meeting or a board meeting, and got together, we're told, start writing the case, or the mission statement. And then we were dating before Pride, I think. Yeah. Dennis Neill: The 1999 Pride. Greg Gatewood: Before 1999 Pride, yeah, because when we came around the corner that first time, I remember him sitting over there, it's weird that I remember certain things at that first Pride. Dennis Neill: And then did he succeed you as president? Greg Gatewood: Yeah, I was president in half of 1999, 2000, he became president in 2001. Dennis Neill: And then do you remember, would next be, was it Mark or Laura? Greg Gatewood: Next was... Greg Gatewood: Dee Beasley. Dennis Neill: Okay. Greg Gatewood: For a brief time. For a brief time. And then Brent Ortolani. 24 �Dennis Neill: Okay, right. Greg Gatewood: Brent Ortolani took over from Dee. Dennis Neill: So in 1999, you and Kerry got together, so you've been together all these years. Greg Gatewood: Ever since, ever since. Dennis Neill: And you're married, is that correct? Greg Gatewood: We are married. Dennis Neill: Tell us a little bit about your ceremony, what made you decide to get married? Greg Gatewood: Our ceremony? Our ceremony was in the hallway of the courthouse. It was very simple, very, and we're done. So that was pretty much it. Dennis Neill: And what year was this? Greg Gatewood: 2018. Dennis Neill: Okay. Greg Gatewood: October, I think. Yeah. Greg Gatewood: It's either 10th or 11th. I think it's the 10th because we were getting ready to go to Europe the next week. So, but that was kind of a trip. Dennis Neill: So I think you stayed involved, right? Even after you stepped down as president, stayed involved with... Greg Gatewood: Oh, good lord, yeah. I was president in 2000, but, well, also in 2000, the big thing, well, I mentioned we got kicked out in, well, we moved in 2000 to the 41st, or 21st and Memorial location. Before we got kicked out, or before we moved, we actually started the capital campaign, because, well, I consider, I don't know if that was 1999 or 2000. It had to have been 2000. It was 2000. Dennis Neill: So that's when the Brady Mansion thing was, I think. Greg Gatewood: No, that was 2001. Dennis Neill: Oh, 2001. 25 �Greg Gatewood: That was February 2001. But before that, there was what I call the Marty Party at Martin Newman's. And this is when we were focused, still primarily focused on Circle Center as the gay community center, because we had toured that at one point. Had so many possibilities. But yeah, we had what I've referred to as the Marty Party, which was at Martin Newman's house. And that's when we presented, we need to do this, you were probably there. That's where we picked up Sue and Marcy, and some other people, a lot of other people, on the capital campaign. Greg Gatewood: That's when we officially started the capital campaign. Dennis Neill: So who do you think originated the concept of the Pyramid Project? Both the name and the... Greg Gatewood: Well, we went through some of the names. It seems like in the gay community, but in the larger community as a whole, naming is a very big thing. But yeah, I want to say, when we first met, it was the original center at 38th and Peoria. I just got back from that, from Creating Change. So yeah, I got back from... Creating Change is the conference that I went to. I think it was Oakland at the time. I've just gotten back, so yeah, it was in late 2000, or early, after Pride, but before October 2000, was probably when the capital campaign started, I think. It started there in the original center, and then we moved to the 21st and Memorial Center. Dennis Neill: So did the name kind of come up through committee, or did someone…? Greg Gatewood: Oh, the Pyramid Project, I think, yeah, it must have come up through committee, because there were different names that were discussed and stuff, and honestly, I don't remember at all who specifically came up with the name. I remember when we first thought of this as, yeah, I want to say, well, Sue and Marcy got re-involved from the very beginning of that, because she was, Sue was chair. I think we, yeah, she was chair. She became chair in 2000, when we first started, I think. Greg Gatewood: So they were big drivers of that, of the name and everything, I think, because to be honest, there was probably just a little bit of hesitation, because pyramid schemes, that was the first thing. I know there was a hesitation because of that name, but it overall became a winner, I think. I do remember on a trip to Vegas, one time we were thought, we need to do, because we'd been doing research on this capital campaign. You know, you had donors, and you had to recognize your donors, and you needed all this stuff, and someone had just taken a trip to Vegas, so they thought, we need to get little pyramids. They sell them at Luxor, and we can have it in people's names. That was the topic that was clear. It was gonna be a donor gift, but it was kind of squished. 26 �Dennis Neill: So then, TOHR moved to a location near 41st and Yale. Were you involved in that transition? Greg Gatewood: Well, that's right, I forgot about that. 21st and Memorial, we were there for what, from 2000 to 2003, I think. 2003, yeah, as a side note on that, when I signed the lease on as president, you sign the lease, the lease typically, because I was so nervous that you're addressing. At one point, I was really nervous. You're personally, financially responsible for that lease as the signer. Obviously, you're the lease signer. That is the reason we had the Gill Outgiving and Community Foundation Seminars. It was because we found that grant, and I wrote the grant for the outgiving and community thing. We had the seminars in 2001, and I think that's the reason we bought this building, was because of the success of the Pyramid Project, and the tactics that were utilized in that were learned through outgiving and community seminars that we, it was through the Gill Foundation. As a note, yeah, I forgot all about that. That was at the center of 21st Memorial. We were outgiving and community program. We were selected through a grant process through the Gill Foundation. We held seminars, development seminars every month, at least half, as part of the stipulation of the grant, at least half of the people that came there had to be from non-gay organizations. So, that's where we got involved with the MET, Red Cross, and various other organizations. So, that's how we made some inroads to those organizations. And, of course, the Pyramid Project learned how to raise money, as so did everyone else. That was, every month was in 2000, I forget all about. I keep forgetting about Gill Outgiving and community [Tulsa Community Foundation], but I credit that as why the Pyramid Project was successful. Dennis Neill: So, was the Pyramid Project your main focus after you stepped down as being the president until what time? Greg Gatewood: I had certainly helped with the Pyramid Project after I stepped down as president. I was probably more, I was always, I was definitely focused on pride. I've always been focused on pride, because I was kind of, I was very involved with that. I, well, what was it, what was 2001, 2002, 2003. There was, what we did, what was going on at the center at 21st and Memorial at that time? Dennis Neill: Seemed like Kerry and I were kind of running those movie nights. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, the movie nights, we started the history, we started the history project in 2003. That started at that center. That's when we had that first dinner. At All Souls, we had the history dinner. Who was the speaker of that? 27 �Dennis Neill: Oh, one was at Lee Badgett or something like that. We had two, we did one one year and then followed it the next year. And then Laura kind of got so involved at OSU, things kind of dropped off, although she did a lot of interviews that we're catching up on right now. So you were involved in Pride. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, I did a lot of Pride stuff. I did a lot of event stuff and a bit of some development. Dennis Neill: So do you remember when you rolled off of the board then? What year? Greg Gatewood: 2000, 2001, yeah, 2001, 2001 was Kerry's president and 2002 was Brent, that was, Pride became an emergency situation in 2002. Dennis Neill: Why do you say that? Greg Gatewood: We'd lost the coordinator for Pride and president of the organization. Dennis Neill: Was that Dee? Greg Gatewood: Yeah. And so Brent became president and I stepped in as Pride coordinator and started slashing. Our first meeting, our first meeting, because at that, oh, I forgot about that. In 2000, instead of just having the parade and the festival, we thought, well, why not have fewer things? We expanded it to a week, an entire week. All days, every day of Pride and that was a lot. I'll say that. In 2001, I think we started dropping it back, bringing it back, but what was I talking about then? Dennis Neill: Oh, we were kind of talking about you're involved with Pride and then we kind of get to, we moved to the new center. And then I think, correct me if I'm wrong, it seems like we hired our first executive director, Michael Christopher. Greg Gatewood: That was in 2004, had to have been in 2004. Dennis Neill: Okay, and after he left, do you remember when you started it and how did it come about that you became the executive director? I remember that. Yeah, I took a little break in 2004 because it was needed. And then I became, let's see, what was going on? 30 Days, which was a TV show on MTV, I think, I don't know what channel it's on. Tulsa was in the hunt, or the producer of 30 Days had come to Tulsa to interview people to be on the show, 30 Days, where you could have a gay man and a straight man live together for 30 days. And it was the guy that did the McDonald's, the 30 McDonald's for 30 Days. I think he may have passed away by now. What was his name? 28 �He did a McDonald's, only had McDonald's for 30 days. He'd do something for 30 days and see the results. It was a show, but he came and they were interviewing people. I don't know, I met them at the center. Before, I was (?) by any means. They were here in the winter, early 2005. And because we went to numerous bars and interviewed people, I don't know if they found anybody. They'd ask me, but I wouldn't have been able to be there. I was, that was in early 2005. That's when I started, I started, yeah. Because y'all, something, had Michael left or something? Dennis Neill: Yeah. Greg Gatewood: And I'd come, I don't know why, I'd start helping with that 30 Days thing. And then. Maybe an ED at that point. I can't guess. That's hard to remember. That was 20 years ago. Dennis Neill: So did you apply for the position? Greg Gatewood: Yeah, when the new ED position, I applied. Dennis Neill: Do you remember who was on the interview? Greg Gatewood: I remember talking to, I think it was Laura, Mark. Were you there? You were there. Dennis Neill: Might have been. I was on the board until October of 2005. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, so you were there. Because I remember you were in the back room, I interviewed you. I was in the back room, I think. Mark, you, I can see. Atkinson, the first. Yeah, there you are. Yeah. But that was, that center, the 21st. The 41st in Peoria. No, the 41st in Yale. Y'all were knocking down, y'all just knocked down a wall, I think, to create a bigger room, conference room, maybe. Because the center relocated from 21st Memorial to 41st in Yale. I was on my sabbatical. I was on a break. So I wasn't there when everyone moved. I wasn't there for that move, fortunately for me. Dennis Neill: So what do you remember about our time there at 41st and Yale, kind of the programs, activities, thoughts? For example, I know that we got our first grant for the Cyber Center. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, that's when David Bohnett’s Cyber Center opened up, which I noticed is kind of different these days. Well, I just think it's not utilized. I mean, why? 29 �Dennis Neill: Well, that, and they moved everything for that Fringe Festival, and so they got a new step back, but we're working on it. That was a big arts thing we did in September here that took over our building. But we are working with Bohnett right now to kind of figure out the path forward. Greg Gatewood: Okay, because I remember the day of Bohnett’s Cyber Center, because when it first opened, you said, at the 41st and Yale location. About 10, whether 8, 10 computers, something like that, maybe. Dennis Neill: I think it was 6. I think we've always had 6. Greg Gatewood: No, there were more than that. Dennis Neill: There were more, okay. Greg Gatewood: At one point there were more. I don't know if the grant, unless you remember that. Because when you came in that little room, or that space, there were two rows. We had the Northeast, at one point there was a Northeast Active Primetimes. They came and did classes right when it first opened. I can't remember the couple's name. Dennis Neill: I do remember that [Richard and Barbara ?]. Greg Gatewood: But they did classes for elderly people on computers. And then, I don't know whether to talk about that or not, but one of the most memorable things about that place was me getting a phone call on a Sunday telling me someone is not allowed to go in that center anymore because of things tied to that cyber center. Dennis Neill: Misuse of the cyber center? Greg Gatewood: Because they used it to look at things… Dennis Neill: Talk to us about the highs and lows of your time as the executive director. Greg Gatewood: Well, highs, I was executive director, okay. Highs, probably one of the highest highs was the day we moved in here. Or not moved in here, we didn't move in here, but we raised the flag here. I'll never forget that day. It was cold, I think it was in November 2005, probably. Because we bought it in October. Dennis Neill: September. So it was real shortly after that. Greg Gatewood: It was shortly after. But we didn't remodel or anything. We had not occupied it. But it was not really long after. Because, again, I got back from training at Creating Change again because I remember I bought new clothes in San Francisco. But we 30 �raised the flag up here. We raised the flag. That was a really high day. We raised the pride flag here. I thought it was a good day. It was a really good day. I remember you were here. Greg Gray was here. I don't know why I remember talking to you all right in hat room out there, because my suntan was running, my fake suntan, I'd put on fake suntan to look good. I was sweating and my tan was running down the back of my neck, I think. But that was a really good day. And the first event we ever had. Dennis Neill: Which was? Greg Gatewood: Was here in the building. The center was not officially opened. It was the, so it would have been in 2006. It was in the events center. It was the art show for Pride. But you had entered from the garage door. I don't know if it's still there. Is this the garage door that faced the alley? Dennis Neill: Yes. Greg Gatewood: That's how you entered from that way and came in. That was the first official event we ever had here. Dennis Neill: Now I remember Sue and Marcy organizing the Pyramid fundraiser here. Greg Gatewood: Oh yeah. We had a trolley thing. We came from someone's house here one time. Dennis Neill: Yeah. We had that big dinner here and it seemed like we raised… Greg Gatewood: Oh yeah. I forgot about that. The big dinner. Oh yeah, that dinner. I was the ED. That was Sue and Marcy because Kerry and I attended as donors. Dennis Neill: That was probably 06 also. Greg Gatewood: That had to have been 06, I think. Dennis Neill: You were here as the ED for the dedication, February 12th of 07. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, I was here the day we opened. That was a very good day. I'll never forget. Yeah, that's a really good day. I'll never forget the song. I have that song downloaded on my iTunes. Dennis Neill: What was it? 31 �Greg Gatewood: It's one of my funeral songs. It's a long story. “What Have You Done.” They played it on the video for the Pyramid Project at the very end. What Have You Done Today To Make Me Feel Proud. I can't remember the artist's name. I love the song. But that song was played a lot at that gathering downstairs. Downstairs, wherever we are. Dennis Neill: I remember that. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, that was the day we opened. Was it February? Dennis Neill: It was February. Greg Gatewood: Oh, we moved in before… Dennis Neill: It was right before that Valentine's. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you mentioned Valentine's. You mentioned the, what's it called now, the Tate Mansion. Dennis Neill: Oh, yeah. Greg Gatewood: Party, the first Wild Hearts Ball. Dennis Neill: Oh, yeah, uh-huh. Dennis Neill: When did you leave as executive director, do you recall? Greg Gatewood: June of 2007. Dennis Neill: June of 2007, right. Greg Gatewood: June 14th, 2007, Flag Day. Dennis Neill: Okay, so from the time that you left the architectural firm, what year was your last gig with the architectural firm? Greg Gatewood: Oh, with the architectural firm. Oh, I left in 2000. Dennis Neill: So have you been involved in architectural work since then? Greg Gatewood: Not with firms. Dennis Neill: Okay. 32 �Greg Gatewood: Not with firms. I've done work on my own. I do work by myself. I do mostly residential stuff. Commercial, I love commercial. Dennis Neill: So tell us a little bit about your involvement with TOHR after you left as executive director. You've got such an interesting relationship with Nancy MacDonald that we really want you to cover as much of that interaction and work with PFLAG and Nancy as you want to share. Greg Gatewood: Sure. Well, you mentioned I left OkEq on June 14, 2007. I'll be honest, it wasn't good for me anyway. Hopefully it wasn't good for others. But, yeah, it was a tough time for myself. Real tough for a number of reasons. I know I wasn't involved with any more way, shape, or form until 2000. What, 20 [2020]? It was the 40th anniversary. We were going to do something. It was right before. I think it was 2019. Dennis Neill: Is that when you started helping me up here? Greg Gatewood: I think that because that had to have been there. Because we were getting ready. The gala was going to be the 40th Gala. And, of course, then COVID hit. And then now the gala. I think that's what made it 2019. Dennis Neill: I started working in 2019 to get this thing going. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, so, yeah. Nancy, I remember the first time, of course Nancy McDonald was a former national PFLAG president from Tulsa here. I remember the first, well not the first time I met her. At the center, I'm sure it was 1998 or 99. Was it 98? 99. We named this, the Nancy McDonald Rainbow Library after her. That was when, I probably met her beforehand, but Chastity Bono came to town for a PFLAG dinner. And that was, yeah, we were at the other center, the original center when that came to town. And Chastity, what's her name now? What's his name now? Dennis Neill: Chas. Greg Gatewood: Chas. Yeah. Came to dinner, we had an event at the center, at the original center, and it's named, there's a picture somewhere. And that's one of the first times I met Nancy. I met Nancy back in the 90s. And when we, that was in 99, because in 99 was also the year we had that, the gala. The Barney Frank Gala. First gala. And I remember, we talked, we were talking to her, I remember her coming up to the center, yeah, and helping Leanne do stuff and stuff. And that's when I first, that's probably when I first met her. I mean, I met her, maybe met her, I don't know, back in the early 90s when you were having the, you know, the Tulsa, the city of Tulsa stuff. And obviously through PFLAG, you know, read about her. But we became, Nancy and I became friends after I, she was of course 33 �PFLAG president the entire time I was involved. And after I left, we started having, we'd have lunch once a month or so, we started having lunch, just talk. Because we, she grew up in Nebraska, in rural Nebraska, farm country. I grew up in rural Oklahoma. Not necessarily farm. And so we could talk farming for sure. We could talk farming. And we could also talk, you know, LGBT stuff too. So yeah, we did, we did, we'd go to lunch, we'd go to lunch usually once, at least once a month, always at a Mexican place. Because Joe didn't like Mexican. And so she only ate Mexican when we ate Mexican. That's also the only time I eat Mexican because Kerry doesn't like Mexican. So now I don't eat Mexican. Dennis Neill: Call me up sometime, I'll go out with you. Greg Gatewood: So now I just don't, so now I don't eat Mexican. When did Oklahoma, voted on the marriage, ban marriage. When did we do that? I remember, have you ever, that was early 2000? Dennis Neill: Like 04, 06. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, something might be 04 maybe? Dennis Neill: Might have been. Greg Gatewood: Because we were coming, Nancy and I were coming back from Stillwater, she gave a talk or something at the Stillwater gay group, whatever it was called, down in OSU. We were coming back and we were talking about how it's going to be, you know, obviously we're going to lose, but yeah, but Nancy was an incredible lady in my book. Yeah, we, after I left, we, I, she always said, if I ever wrote a book of the stories she has, I want a share of that book. Dennis Neill: Speaking of that, you know, when she passed and I was visiting with Morva a little bit as they prepared for her service, the thing I failed to follow up on were her recorda which she had suggested that she would donate to our archives. So we never got that closure on that. Are you in touch at all with any of the family? Or do you know where Joe is these days? Greg Gatewood: I was thinking about Joe the other day, because I didn't know if he was still at Montereau, or had moved in with one of the sons or something. I'd think Jason if it was, but I haven't. I saw something on social media that Jason had posted about Joe, but this is probably a few months ago. So I was wondering about Joe the other day, and see if he is doing all right, because I knew he'd had health issues. And so, yeah. 34 �Dennis Neill: How about with regard to Nancy, what's kind of the most memorable moment that you remember working with Nancy on one of her wonderful causes? Greg Gatewood: I don't have a thing up my sleeve. Probably one of the probably, oh my, I'd say Pride. One of the most memorable moments was at Pride 2007, probably. Yeah, I just confided in her some stuff that something happened, and I was like, good God, what's going to happen? And she just said, she, I can't say what she said, but it was so encouraging that it just made you feel better. Just, it was, because I was really worried about something. And she's like, well, you're not that type of person at all. And she just made you feel better. Just, and just, it was, but, yeah. That was probably during the Pride of 2007. Dennis Neill: She was the mother for all of us. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, she was. I... mother. Yeah, she was the mother of a lot of gay guys here in Tulsa. Dennis Neill: I always considered her my lifetime mentor. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, yeah, and yeah, and yeah, she was, yeah, she was the mother you could talk to with you. You couldn't talk to your mother, then you talk to Nancy. Greg Gatewood: There was one other thing that came to mind that is important to the history of OkEq. In 1998, Matthew Shepard died. So I don't know why I'm getting emotional. Oh, so anyway, we're at the center. This young man comes in, young, probably in his early 20s, maybe at that old. He's like, what are you all going to do? Are you going to do something for Matthew Shepard? He had just been attacked. He wasn't actually dead yet. And it had been a long, I don't remember what was going on. But basically, me and Rick and this kid decided we needed to do something. Steve, we was, you know, Steve was busy with his, I think, a new boyfriend. So we started getting this little, we need to do something. So we had on this, where was it, the library in downtown. We ended up having the attorney general give a proclamation. There, Dan was, Drew Edmondson did a proclamation from the state of Oklahoma from the attorney general. Council Oak sang. And I remember, we didn't expect that many people to be there, because it was very spur of the moment. Me and Rick and that young man went to bars. That's how, there was no internet. We didn't do the internet thing. And so we went to bars and with little flyers. And here, everyone needs to come. This is happening. And we had a good service. But I remember people literally walked up from Renegades, which was 13th, 16th and Main, something like that. They walked up to the Civic Center Plaza. We probably 35 �had 300 people there, I would think. And that was important for OkEq, because one, the more it recognized the importance… Matthew Shepherd an important bit in the history of the whole community. It also brought a lot. We got a lot. We were on the front page the next day. Because I was on the front page the next day. Because we lit candles. We had a lighting candle ceremony and the council folks sang. So we got a lot of recognition for that. Dennis Neill: Did you do the same in helping Nancy on the sweep away the hate? Greg Gatewood: I was not involved with that. I think, after my time there. I know they did the sweep, but that was sweeps of hate. I can't remember. Was that for the Phelps thing? Dennis Neill: Yeah, the Phelps was boycotting the Sand Springs High School because, I don't know who it was, a student that was involved…[2004 Westbro Baptist Church protested Michale Shakleford, 17 year-old high school student]. Greg Gatewood: Oh, one of the students out there. Yeah, the Phelps people, they protested the first parade, all the stuff that went through that. I didn't chase them out of town. I followed them out of town. In 2000, just to make sure they left town, after they protested the young guy's graduation, because he had started at GSA. I followed him out of town. That 1998 thing was just important to bring up. Dennis Neill: Any other thoughts or memories you want to share as we kind of conclude our interview? Greg Gatewood: Well, when I think about the history of OkEq, one, pride. I think about pride. I think about this building, the people, mostly the people. Because I've met a lot of friends. I've met my husband, obviously. I probably should mention that. I've met a lot of friends, obviously, through the community center. It's hard to believe it's been 20 years now. No, 30 years. Good God, 30 years. It has been 30 years, hasn't it? Still not as many as other people, but yeah, it has been. Dennis Neill: Well, we've all had our ups and downs with this organization. Greg Gatewood: Yeah, I had a down. Dennis Neill: I understand. But we appreciate so much you sharing your time with us and letting others know about the important history that you've been sharing with us. Greg Gatewood: There's a lot. If I rack my brain or think of different things, I could tell you stories. Some are good. Some are really good. Some are bad. Some should not ever be told. But if you want I could write some. I could write down. I write good, too. 36 �Dennis Neill: We'd love to add whatever you'd like to to the file and the transcript. That'd be great. Yeah, absolutely. Anything you feel comfortable. Because it's been so interesting going through these oral histories and reading all those that Laura did. It really just brings back so many memories to me. Greg Gatewood: Like the Matthew Shepard thing. That's something that is kind of a blip. Well, not a blip. That really did, I think, help that event. That event and the spontaneity of it. It was less than a week. And it was no push email, mass email, or social media. It was the same for all prides. For the first prides until mid-2000 or 2000. We went to every bar. Every Friday and Saturday night. And there were seven or eight bars in town then. We went to every bar on Friday and Saturday night. And I didn't think of it until later. I'm the person that I hated that would put stuff on your windshield. Can I come out after or something? We would paper every car in every parking lot in every bar and close by parking lots for pride. Here's your pride schedule. And we'd do that every Friday and Saturday night for three or four months before pride. Dennis Neill: Well, Greg, thanks again for sharing your story. And please feel free to write down some of the thoughts that we can share with the audience. Greg Gatewood: Sometimes I write better than I talk. Dennis Neill: Thank you. Greg Gatewood: Thank you. 37 �More Memorable Moments (by Greg Gatewood) June 2026 An Unsung Hero I first volunteered with Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) in 1996. I do not recall who ‘showed me the ropes’ of answering the helpline when the operations of TOHR were located at 41st and Harvard. That initial time of volunteering for TOHR was fairly short-lived due to a number of factors. However, I definitely recall the first person I met when beginning to volunteer again at the original “Pride Center” in 1997. That first person was Steve Horn. Steve was the volunteer coordinator, as well as 1st Vice-President, I believe, at that time. Steve’s dedication to the purposes and mission of TOHR definitely had an impact on me. Steve became President while I became an at-large member of the board in 1998. Major and impactful decisions were not only made, but also accomplished, for TOHR and the Tulsa Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community in the short 1.5 years under Steve’s leadership and dedication. Beginning in January 1998 through June 1999, Steve was at the Center nearly every day leading the movement of working for equality for the Tulsa LGBT community. He would normally show up at the Center before 6 pm (after a full day of work at his actual ‘work’ office), open the Center, work for a solid 4 hours, welcome and talk to others while doing that work, close the Center at 10 pm, and then finally go home. That was repeated Monday thru Friday for the next 1.5 years. Weekends brought more time to work for the community. So, 6 to 8 hours on Saturdays and 4 hours on Sundays were normal. I know Steve was there all that time, because I was there with him. I sincerely believe the foundation for the future success of TOHR was set in 1998 and 1999 under Steve Horn’s leadership and dedication. HOPE (Health Outreach, Prevention, and Education) HOPE, initially a program of TOHR, was split-off to become a separate non-profit in early 1998. This was an incredibly hard and difficult decision for all members of the Board of Directors as well as for the membership of OkEq (all decisions were voted upon by the membership at that time). However, due to the severe consequences the State of Oklahoma would definitely have taken against TOHR and HOPE, aka the complete dismantling of both organizations by the State of Oklahoma, we knew it was vitally necessary. The very questionable actions made by previous administrations and individuals forced this action to occur in order to ensure the survival of both TOHR and 38 �HOPE. Today, both organizations continue to serve the LGBT community and general community in their own capacities. THE anonymous gift of 1998 The necessary split of HOPE from TOHR resulted in multiple positives for both organizations. However, it did come with a few setbacks. The primary sources of funding for TOHR after the split were memberships, a few but regular donations, and profit from the newly acquired and expanded Pride Store. As the end of the 1998 approached, and despite very careful budgeting with strict adherence to that budget, the serious question of “how we will pay rent” and “will we have to close the doors” was a real threat. An anonymous gift, an amount to cover rent though the end of year plus a bit more, was then delivered to the TOHR office in the newly renamed “Tulsa Gay Community Services Center.” That anonymous gift kept the doors open in 1998 and helped set the course for success in 1999. Approximately 3 years later, I finally learned who was that anonymous donor. Tulsa Pride Tulsa Pride ’99 featured the 1st Tulsa LGBT Pride Parade. However, there were several important earlier moments that led to that 1st Tulsa LGBT Pride Parade in 1999. Planning for Pride ’99 began before Pride ’98 even happened. When the then Tulsa Chief of Police asked us “why aren’t you having a parade” while discussing the sidewalk march of ’98, we developed a plan. Steve Horn, Rick Martin, and I decided then and there to have Tulsa’s 1st Pride Parade in 1999. However, Pride ’98 was in two short weeks and we had goals to accomplish, not to mention pulling off the upcoming celebration. A major and very important component for us was higher visibility and to grow attendance, so we relocated Pride ’98 to Veterans Park (now Dreamkeepers Park) and moved the date to the second Saturday of June (to avoid Father’s Day weekend). One of my more memorable moments of Pride ’98 is of Rick Martin and me deciding to rent a trailer the day before the Picnic to use as the stage. This was great as it elevated the entertainers above the crowd. The entertainers soon discovered the gaps between the wooden floor of the trailer were just wide enough to trap a high heel - just ask lead entertainer Kris Kohl : ) The struggle to make the 1st Tulsa LGBT Pride Parade actually happen was very real. Due to the Tulsa City Council’s intention to deny any permit for the 1st Tulsa Pride Parade as they had delayed the vote twice - we made plans. Those plans included having a lawsuit written and prepared to be filed the next day in the event of any denial of any permit. We were 39 �definitely ready. The City of Tulsa attorney had informed the Tulsa City Council that a denial of the parade permit would not only bring consequences, it was also highly illegal. Only due to the illegality and potential lawsuits did the Tulsa City Council vote to approve the parade permit. A few of us attended the Tulsa City Council when they were again scheduled to vote on the parade permit. Immediately prior to voting to grant the permit, we were treated firsthand to full-on bigotry through mini-sermons, condemnation, and outright hate-filled statements from nearly all of the then Tulsa City Council members. The ‘controversy’ surrounding the parade permit vote turned out to be quite good. The antics of the Tulsa City Council caught the attention of the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church (WBC). The condemnation by the Tulsa City Council and resulting protests by the WBC brought even more free press coverage. Knowledge of and interest in Tulsa’s 1st Pride Parade skyrocketed. The result was a much larger attendance and participation than anticipated. I so remember riding the leading float with Steve and Phillip. As we rounded the corner at 21st and Boulder and saw the thousands of people cheering loudly, I remember initially thinking, ”what have we done?” only to immediately realize “damn, we have succeeded”. I will never forget that feeling of joy and pride. I was fortunate to be the host representative of TOHR for US Representative and Grand Marshal of the 1st Tulsa Pride Parade, the Honorable Barney Frank, during Tulsa Pride 1999. ‘Host’ simply meant that everywhere Barney went, I was there with him. B.J. Kissinger, the host representative of the Tulsa County Democratic Party, and I were treated to some amazing stories of the inner-workings of the US House of Representatives, why Barney really wanted to come to Tulsa, and his new boyfriend’s nervousness of attending an upcoming dinner with President Bill Clinton at the White House among additional stories and anecdotes. A few things definitely stand out during that memorable weekend: 1) Barney would not eat dinner at “An Evening with Barney Frank,” the inaugural Equality Gala, until after he spoke. Why? He did not want to risk having any food stuck in his teeth while speaking. 2) Barney jumped right in to play volleyball with attendees at the Tulsa Pride Festival. He thoroughly enjoyed that time as he was smiling and laughing, commenting after a game or two “there’s some good athletes in Tulsa.” 3) The entire crowd at the Pride Festival sat down on the grass and listened to Barney as he spoke from the stage. That moment of watching thousands listen intently to him was one of was one of the most memorable and rewarding of being heavily involved with Tulsa Pride for over a decade. Note: There should be (or at least there was) a video of the entire 1st Tulsa Pride Parade in the History Archives of OkEq. That video was taken from atop the old (now demolished) RR Bridge spanning Riverside Drive near 31st and Riverside. 40 �The success of the events of 1999 led to major expansion in 2000. Primarily a one-day event that contained the Pride Parade, the Pride Festival, and the Gala all on the same day in 1999 became an over a week-long celebration in 2000. Please refer to “Diversity Celebration 2000” in the historical collections for a complete schedule. 9 events in 8 days I think. In fact, I took a week of vacation off of my profession (Architecture) to help ensure the success of that week. Kerry Lewis, my now husband, did the same from his profession as an Attorney. The Grand Marshalls of the Pride Parade and featured speakers at the Gala and Festival were Dr. Grethe Cammermeyer and Greg Louganis. Dr. Cammermeyer inspired the crowd when she spoke eloquently at the Gala of her time with the US Armed Forces and forced departure. The next day, she led the parade with great pride. She again spoke eloquently from the stage during the Festival and greeted many attendees throughout the afternoon. Greg Louganis was the exact opposite. He demanded special treatment at the Gala while speaking only of himself. He left the parade early, breaking his contract, to feed his dog and to take a nap. He then badmouthed Tulsa the following year when he was in Denver. Soulforce in Oklahoma, a LGBT organization based on the Dr. Martin Luther King principles of non-violence, brought in Rev. Mel While to further reach all in the community. Rev. While was a former ghostwriter for Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, and Pat Robertson before coming out as a gay man. He then became a leading LGBT+ activist and inspirational speaker. Rev. White spoke to a packed house at the Tulsa PAC worship service and inspired more through workshops. Note: Rev. While is the father of Mike White, an out gay man and writer / director of the HBO hit-show “White Lotus,” The success of the Tulsa Pride celebrations of 1999 and 2000 through the use of wellknown names and activists (as planned) allowed us to focus on important issues such as Hate Crimes in 2001. The Grand Marshalls of the parade and featured speakers at the Gala and Festival were parents of recent hate crime victims. Those three (3) parents, ___, ___, and ___ reminded all in attendance at the various events to double-down to work for equality. Their remarks at both the Gala and Festival were some of the most emotional I’ve ever heard. I hope their words continue to have an impact and are still felt today throughout the Tulsa LGBT and allied community. My involvement with Tulsa Pride unfortunately ended in 2007. 2000 was an extremely busy and productive year for TOHR. A few highlights: 1. I was President of the Board of Directors (that actually began in July 1999 with Steve’s relocation to Denver, CO). 41 �2. The Pyramid Project, the successful Capital Campaign of TOHR, began in 2000. Sue Welch became chair while I as President became co-chair (a stipulation of then bylaws that the President of the Board was a co-chair on all committees). 3. “Diversity Celebration 2000,” aka Tulsa Pride, expanded to over a week+ series of very successful events. 4. Members of the LGBT and allied community protested at the Boy Scouts headquarters in Brookside in Midtown Tulsa. 5. The “Tulsa Gay Community Services Center,” the name adopted in 1998 and formerly known as the Pride Center, relocated to 21st and Memorial and was subsequently renamed the Tulsa Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center 6. The Board of Directors welcomed its first member of the Transgender community. 7. I was the Oklahoma coordinator for the 2000 March on Washington (see more information below). 8. Kerry and I attended our first “Creating Change” conference in Oakland, CA. The information gleaned and learned at the conference helped ‘set the stage’ for the future of TOHR. 9. We planned and executed a successful “kettle protest” of the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army did not (do not?) like members of the LGBT community. The “kettle protest” involved putting a protest note in lieu of money in the Salvation Army kettles. 10. TOHR became the recipient of the “OutGiving InCommunity” grant (see more information below). In 2000, I wrote the grant that bought the Denver-based Gill Foundation to the Tulsa community. OutGiving InCommunity was a series of fundraising and organizational workshops and teachings for local non-profits and individuals held monthly during 2001. A requirement of those workshops was that 50% of all attendees were to be representatives of non-LGBT organizations. This requirement strengthened the fundraising techniques of various organizations and individuals while also strengthening and developing important relationships. I firmly believe those workshops and teachings were THE reason why TOHR was successful in the “Pyramid Project” capital campaign. The Pyramid Project began in 2000 in the original center at 38th/Peoria in Brookside. The current building housing the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center was purchased in 2005. The purchase of a permanent 42 �building in 5 short years was a tremendous accomplishment for such a small organization. What we learned as a result of the OutGiving Incommunity grant not only laid the foundation for the purchase of a building for ng the permanent Center, but also the impetus why OkEq was awarded a FastTrack grant from the Gill Foundation. Ex: during the 2001 Gala, a direct “ask” was made from the podium utilizing techniques learned from the OutGiving InCommunity workshops. The “ask” was the largest one-night infusion, at that point, of funds to TOHR. The week after Pride I notified representatives of the Gill Foundation of our success. The result was a multi-thousand dollar operating grant to “FastTrack” the organization towards further success. I also was the statewide coordinator for Oklahoma for the 2000 March on Washington. It was easy to spot and find the Oklahoma contingent on the National Mall, as an Oklahoma flag flew high above the tens of thousands of people preparing to march down Constitution Avenue. It was also easy to see and hear us during the march, as we not only carried a banner 10’ above the crowd (we brought flags, banners and PVC on the plane), we also sang “Oklahoma” in unison. Suffice it to say, as we sang the state song and especially as we hit the chorus of “where the wind comes sweeping the plains” – it was a big crowd hit. The march was fun, the rally was great, and the concert at RFK Stadium was amazing. 2001 was another banner year for TOHR. The monthly “OutGiving InCommunity” workshops drew many non-LGBT representatives into the Center. This resulted in strengthened relationships as well as successful fundraising. Kerry Lewis was the President of the Board of Directors throughout 2001. His leadership and dedication brought new faces, new ideas, and further success for the Tulsa LGBT community. By 2005, the Center relocated to the 41st and Yale area. I also became the full-time Executive Director in early 2005. Once again, I hit the ground running. However, prior to that, I was asked to be at the Center to welcome and host the producers of a “30 Days” television show. That show aimed to highlight people learning how to accept each other, through having a heterosexual man live with a gay man for 30 days. We (two producers and I) set up interviews at the Center and in various LGBT nightclubs and bars around town. In the end, the producers asked me to be that gay man living with a heterosexual man for 30 days. However, I was not in the position to do that arrangement at that point and to my knowledge, the show never came to fruition. “Brokeback Mountain” (and the something only one or two people know about to this day). Prior to the national release of the groundbreaking film “Brokeback Mountain,” I received a call from a producer of the film. Due to the films country/western focus and subject matter, as well as because of the success of TOHR, I was asked if Tulsa and TOHR would be 43 �interested in hosting the World Premiere of “Brokeback Mountain.” Discussions ensued with the possibility of such an event happening in Tulsa. However, due to marketing and production decisions and needs, it unfortunately (and obviously) did not come to pass. However, TOHR did celebrate “Brokeback Mountain” in a big way. A free BBQ dinner was held at the Center with the capacity crowd packing every space, including the storage room, in the Center. We then walked or drove together to the film’s opening night at the AMC Theatres a few blocks away. We purchased the permanent building housing the Center in 2005. I remember attending an event around the corner on 3rd Street in the newly designated “East Village” prior to touring and purchasing the building. While at that event, I ran into Dennis Neill. We both commented to each other something like “have you seen that building on 4th Street” (of course we both had)…we definitely need to look into that building.” Obviously, the “bomb factory” was bought and was immediately followed by Sue Welch and her team getting to work on renovations. In the interim, day-to-day operations of the then Center near 41st and Yale continued. Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights was renamed “Oklahomans for Equality” (OkEq) in 2006. (“Equality Oklahoma,” the original choice, had been ‘taken’ a couple weeks earlier by a now defunct organization). This rebranding effort included the new name and a new logo (note: I designed all logos and completed all graphics, newsletter, eNews, etc. prior to the new name and logo) among other necessary items. A couple of memories during that process was at one of the meetings I commented “we really need to get involved with this new thing called Facebook.” I was rebuffed on that suggestion by the new logo designer and the then President of the Board of Directors. A funny thing about that new (and current) logo: it was jokingly referred to as the “Who killed Kenny” (see “Southpark) logo by a friend and donor. The logo can be seen as reflecting the mission, however, I can’t forget “Who killed Kenny”… While attending “Creating Change” in San Francisco in 2006, I and the ED of the New York City LGBT Community Center were talking in the lobby of the hotel. During our visit, I was telling him about our recent purchase, ongoing remodel, and planned opening of the new 18,000 square feet Tulsa LGBT Community Center. The result: I joined the Board of Directors of the National Association of LGBT Community Centers. This was a great honor and immediately brought contacts, advice, and important avenues for further success for OkEq. I was reelected to that same board in early 2007 at Creating Change in Kansas City, MO. The future of OkEq seemed so bright. 44 �“Sirius” radio also came calling in 2006. I, through working with the producers of a show on Sirius focused on the LGBT community, set-up a live broadcast of the nationally broadcast show from the Tulsa LGBT Community Center (41st and Yale location). The Center was packed with people to listen and support OkEq and the Center. (Note: I attended an event honoring Nancy McDonald that evening as yet once again I was prevented from on that live, national broadcast). One of the most memorable days of my decade plus of involvement with TOHR / OkEq was the day I raised the Pride flag on the roof of the Dennis R Neill Equality Center. It was a celebration attended by hundreds of the Tulsa LGBT community on a beautiful November day filled with sunshine. I will never forget that feeling. I will never forget that day. 2007 brought change. We moved into and opened the doors of the newly named Dennis R Neill Equality Center in early 2007. The celebration was unforgettable! “Proud” (a theme song of the “Pyramid Project” and now btw, one of my “funeral” songs) played. I will never forget the people, the music, and the joy we all felt. It was a fantastic day filled with pride for all in the community. I will never forget that day. Remodeling work continued. Technology work began and continued. I definitely recall what seemed like the never-ending technology upgrades and installation of new databases that prevented me from actually using my office computer for 3 out of 5 days for 3 months. However, our work continued. Tulsa Pride 2007 was approaching, and now with 2.5 fulltime employees, progress was being accomplished. Two or three weeks before Tulsa Pride 2007, the Board of Directors asked me to develop a 3-year strategic plan. I did. That 3-year strategic plan was greeted and accepted with accolades and thanks as it was a fairly detailed strategic plan filled with expanded programming plans, fundraising plans and goals, and so much more. (Note: that plan appeared to actually be followed, somewhat to a “t,” and was successfully implemented over the next 5 years despite implementation not being able to begin for approximately 2 years). It was also during this time, one of those most memorable moments occurred. Not long after the Dennis R Neill Equality Center opened, a group of teenagers and young adults began coming into the Center at 3:00 pm (opening time) nearly every day. The David Bohnett CyberCenter (this was in the time before smartphones) and the Sue Welch Great Hall were their hangouts. Over the course of a few weeks of saying ‘hi’, casual conversations in the Center or outside, and just simply welcoming this group of teenagers and young adults, one of the young men asked if he could tell me something. He’d been kicked out his home because he was gay. His new friends that were with him did not know 45 �he was gay, and he didn’t want to tell them - at least not yet. He didn’t want to risk not having any friends. He couldn’t risk it. These young people were all homeless. After this group of young adults had visited a few times, someone surprisingly asked me “why do you even talk to them?” My response was hopefully similar to: ”Yes, a 17 year old young man, who was kicked out of the only home he ever knew for being gay, and who is being forced to ‘come out’ again, is just one of the many reasons the Dennis R Neill Equality Center even exists. I recall telling that brave 17-year old young gay man, that he could ‘come out’ to his friends when he wants and/or when it’s best for him. It was his decision. In addition to utilizing the David Bohnett CyberCenter, he also managed to get a book or two from the Nancy & Joe McDonald Rainbow Library on coming out. I also knew he and his friends frequented Youth Services of Tulsa, just across the bridge, and had a level of safety. He shared his story with me the week before Pride, Unfortunately, I never saw him again due to circumstances. I’ve sometimes wondered: did he make it off the streets…did he come out again…is he alive? Tulsa Pride 2007 came and went. It was yet another successful event despite some hiccups which is normal. By Sunday, June 10th, Pride was over, remodeling and technology upgrades were finally getting closet to being complete, and the future seemed so bright. We had a plan and the time, the space, the financial resources, and the dedication to set that plan into action. I was excited for the future. My last day with Oklahomans for Equality and the Dennis R Neill Equality Center was Wednesday, June 13, 2007. When given the option to “gather my things and immediately leave OR make arrangements to get my things later and immediately leave, I chose the former. I will never forget that day. ----Addendum to the above addendum re: Tulsa Pride “Pride” is very important to me. I am quite proud of the work, growth, and success I and others accomplished over the years regarding “Tulsa Pride” celebrations from 1997 through 2007. Below is my response, in full, I posted on Facebook in June 2024 in response to the announcement OkEq posted on Facebook when it decided to move Tulsa Pride to another month instead of the internationally recognized Pride month of June - because of the weather. I am confident the “it’s too hot / the weather” was and is an excuse based in finances. Below is the response I wrote to OkEq (I do not recall the individual who wrote the post I responded to re: moving Tulsa Pride to a month outside the internationally 46 �recognized Pride Month of June. However, this information should be in OkEq Facebook records. ----Thank you for your response, explanation, and for your dedication of time and talents to Tulsa Pride. I know well the hours required to successfully plan, plan, plan, and execute a large-scale event such as Tulsa Pride are incredibly trying and time-consuming. My comments were and are not directed at you or other Tulsa Pride volunteers (added note of explanation: I called the planning and execution of Tulsa Pride 2023 incompetent – which it clearly was – and were directed at any OkEq staff involved with planning of that cluster__). Please accept my apologies as and if they were taken as such. I also ask you to read the “series” of pic comments (ran over Facebook character limits so did pics), aka a rather lengthy but hopeful explanation of the significance, importance, and necessity to hold major “Pride” such as the Tulsa Pride Parade and Festival events in June in their entirety. I volunteered with, led major components of the (then) week+ long celebration, and/or chaired Tulsa Pride for 11 years (1997-2007). I also served as President (1999-2000) and in multiple board positions of OkEq (1998-2003) during that time. I then was the ED of OkEq (2005-2007). During my time with OkEq, I was asked to join and was re-elected to the national board of LGBT Community Centers (now CenterLink). Although not directly with OkEq the last few years, I care deeply for the health and well-being of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as for the success of the mission of equality of OkEq. After all, my husband and I wrote the original (as it was recently changed) mission statement. The information relayed to myself pertained to the late timing of applications and therefore associated scheduling of city employees, etc. related to the lengthy permitting process. Prior to that news, serious financial issues had been discovered within OkEq, before the Equality Gala and Tulsa Pride 2023, and shared with select others. Staffing and leadership changes also occurred before or possibly during that time. The latter two happenings directly affected and currently affect (e.g. the resulting financial situation of OkEq clearly played a role in any decision to move Tulsa Pride) the organization as a whole. An organization, with a 1.2 million dollar budget and multiple (8 at that time?) employees, did not have 1 full-time employee dedicated to its largest program, Tulsa Pride? That is…interesting. Interesting in that years ago, even with only 2.5 employees, the .5 employee (who actually worked full-time) was dedicated to Tulsa Pride. 47 �The revelation that prior documentation or “blueprints” for Tulsa Pride from previous years were not available or found, is much more troubling in numerous ways. Immediate and recent past records, aka documents with vital information, planning directions with deadlines, protocols, etc. of all programs of OkEq, not to mention its largest program should be readily accessible via electronic and/or paper files in and on the property of OkEq. Historical documents and photos are (were?) kept on the property of OkEq in a specific room. It is completely astounding and disturbing, to say the least, that vital programming and historical documents were (are?) nowhere to found on the property of OkEq! I know serious financial issues currently facing OkEq are being addressed by individuals and groups of individuals. There appear to also be questions related to…additional operational and/or questionable behaviors within the organization…that must be further addressed if not yet investigated with all necessary remedial actions taken. [Editor’s note – as our small group of volunteers and part-time archivist continue to organize the history project materials and information from digital storage platforms, many of the past pride materials are being located and organized.] All that being said…Congratulations to you and your team for the jobs done to accomplish much while dealing with the extreme and unique circumstances of Tulsa Pride 2023. “Pride” started as a riot in June 1969. What is internationally recognized as a defining moment – the visible beginning of the fight for LGBTQ+ equality – began on June 28, 1969. The Stonewall Riots, aka “Stonewall” demonstrated the strength and conviction of our community through visibility and direct actions. Those actions of courage and bravery, during the hot Summer days and nights of June, galvanized the LGBTQ+ community in the continuing fight for equality. The NYC site of those important events is now the “Stonewall National Monument,” declared as such in 2016. “Stonewall” was a milestone – it is the WHEN and WHY the LGBTQ+ community publicly declared our freedom and equality! Tulsa Pride began as a picnic in June 1982. A celebration of the LGBTQ+ community in Tulsa, only 13 years after June 1969, was a milestone for our community. The celebrations growth, through increasing attendance, visibility, and organization, bought the 1st Tulsa Pride Parade to the streets of Tulsa on June 12, 1999 (25 years ago next week btw). That milestone for our community fulfilled a 17 year quest to march the streets of Tulsa for LGBTQ+ equality. Since that first Picnic in 1982, to that first Pride Picnic in 1999, to the present day celebration, Tulsa Pride has grown and evolved from a picnic near the edge of town to a large-scale event in Downtown Tulsa. It is one of the many significant accomplishments of the Tulsa LGBTQ+ community during the past 44 years (OkEq was founded in 1980). 48 �During that time period, the LGBTQ+ community also faced many obstacles. The HIV/AIDS crisis that began circa 1981, killing and affecting many in our community, was and is a significant health obstacle. I’ve lost multiple friends to HIV/AIDS. I know others currently living with HIV/AIDS and other serious health concerns. I have extended family members experiencing, or that have experienced Huntingtons, Down Syndrome, Parkinson’s, Cancer, and more. I also have immediate family members living with Cancer, Chromosonal issues, and now ALS. I have educated myself on these various health issues. I do so through talking with, sitting with, volunteering in support of, reading up on, and caring for my friends, community, and family. Do not ever imply I do not care for the health and wellbeing of my friends, my family, or the LGBTQ+ community – EVER! The health of everyone is always a major concern for all past and present organizers of any event or celebration. Juneteenth, 4th of July celebrations, the MLK Jr. Parade, and Tulsa Pride are a few of the major public events held in Tulsa. Those celebrations, and others not listed, happen during months that can extreme and unique weather conditions. Those conditions can, have, and will cause health concerns. Organizers of those events, can, have, and successfully do address health concerns. OkEq has done and easily can do the same with innovative, inclusive, and exciting solutions. OkEq can also do all that while preserving the vital reason that WHEN these events happened are because WHY these events happen! We celebrate Juneteenth on June 19th, or near that day, every year to commemorate the last day of slavery – when freedom was delivered. We celebrate our country’s Independence Day every year on July 4th to commemorate the day we, as a country, declared out freedom. We celebrate Martin Luther King Jr every year on the 3rd Monday in January to commemorate his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement while declaring “We Shall Overcome…” We celebrate Pride every year during the month of June to commemorate the days in June 1969 when LGBTQ+ community members visibly fought back, declaring our freedom and equality! It is seriously doubtful organizers of the above events, and more not named, will ever move their associated events to a different season for any reason. Why? Most often, WHEN we have an important event is tied into WHY that event happens. Tulsa Pride should return to June. Tulsa Pride exists to: 1) Commemorate the beginning of the LGBTQ+ community of visibly fighting for our freedom and equality, 2) Educate the 49 �general public about our community and work for equality, and 3) Celebrate our entire community and the progress made for equality since June 1969. Tulsa Pride must return to June to fulfill the mission of OkEq. Working for Equaltiy for the LGBTQ+ community WAS at the core of the mission of Oklahomans for Equality (OkEq). Moving Tulsa Pride outside the month of June, 1) eliminates the actual WHEN and WHY Pride even happens, 2) Eliminates visibility during the nationally recognized (for the time being) Pride Month, and 3) Eliminates the best opportunity to actually work for equality. We, the LGBTQ+ community, face the real threat of dark days and years in the not-toodistant future. The multiple actions, laws, and decisions across our nation targeting our community are real and strengthening. Legal discrimination, the loss of marriage-equality, and worse actions are definite possibilities facing our community (refer 2024 Elections). In June 1969, the LGBTQ+ community took to the streets fighting back against persecutors. The LGBTQ+ community has faced and addressed serious health issues, such as HIV/AIDS to the benefit of our community and general public. The LGBTQ+ community continues to fight for equality over the years, facing attacks, discrimination, and yes, killings. The LGBTQ+ community has made progress in the fight for equality. The stage is being set to challenge and reverse the LGBTQ+ community’s progress. The stage is being set to remove our civil rights, marriage equality, and much more. When the LGBTQ+ community faces the coming serious challenges to our civil rights and equality – will we take to the streets to fight for our equality, to fight for our future, and to possibly fight for our lives? Or will the LGBTQ+ community only fight for our and future generations equality, civil rights, or lives – if the WHEN is convenient and the WHY is comfort? Happy Pride (and Happy 25th Anniversary to the Tulsa Pride Parade on June 12, 2024)! 50 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2026] Greg Gatewood Interview Description An account of the resource In this engaging conversation, Greg Gatewood shares his life story, beginning with his upbringing in rural Wyandotte, Oklahoma. He reflects on his childhood experiences, including his education at Oklahoma State University, where he pursued architecture. Greg discusses the close-knit community of his small school, his involvement in sports, and his early interests in agriculture through the Future Farmers of America (FFA). He also touches on his family dynamics, highlighting the influence of his parents and siblings on his formative years.<br />As the conversation progresses, Greg opens up about his journey of self-discovery regarding his sexual orientation, coming out as a gay man during his time at OSU in the mid-1980s. He recounts the challenges he faced growing up in a religious family and the societal pressures of the time. Greg's narrative shifts to his involvement in the LGBTQ community in Tulsa, detailing his volunteer work at the Tulsa Gay Community Center and his role in organizing Pride events. His reflections provide insight into the evolution of LGBTQ rights and visibility in Oklahoma, showcasing both personal and communal growth over the years. In this episode, the speakers reflect on their experiences and pivotal moments in the LGBTQ+ community, particularly focusing on the establishment and evolution of the Tulsa Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Community Center. They recount a poignant story from November 2000, when a man drove all night to seek refuge and support at the center after coming out to his wife. This encounter highlights the center's role as a safe haven and resource for individuals in crisis. The conversation also delves into the personal connections formed within the community, including the speakers' own relationship and their involvement in various initiatives, such as the Pyramid Project and Pride events, which aimed to foster inclusivity and support for LGBTQ+ individuals in Tulsa.<br />As the discussion progresses, the speakers share their memories of significant events, including the impact of Matthew Shepard's death on the community and the importance of activism in raising awareness. They reflect on their roles in organizing Pride events and the challenges faced in advocating for LGBTQ+ rights. The episode concludes with a sense of nostalgia and gratitude for the friendships and connections made through their work, emphasizing the ongoing journey toward equality and acceptance. Subject The topic of the resource Greg Gatewood Oral History Project Interview from January 15, 2026 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Greg Gatewood, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource January 15, 2026 2026 activism architecture coming out Coming Out Day community Dennis Neill Dennis R. Neill family Gay Rights Greg Gatewood interview Matthew Shepard OKEQ Oral History Project Oklahoma State University Oklahoma State University (OSU) oral history oral history interview Oral History Project OSU Pride pride Parade Pride Parade and festival rural transcript Tulsa Community Center Tulsa Gay Community Services Center video Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [Series] Oral Histories Project > Interviews Description An account of the resource <strong>Physical Media:</strong> <br />Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program<br />Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007<br /><br /><strong>Digital Media:</strong> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource [2005] Jack Waggoner Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 3, 2005 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on December 3, 2005. <strong>Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research.</strong> Born in Western Kansas in 1936, Jack graduated from Pawnee Rock High School and then joined the Navy in 1954. He attended University of Kansas and began his professional career in Kansas City, Missouri and became involved in the gay community. Upon moving to Tulsa, he became an interstate truck driver. In the interview, he discusses the various gay bars, his eleven year relationship with a bartender and other activities and interactions in the Tulsa gay community. Subject The topic of the resource Jack Waggoner Oral History Project Interview from December 3, 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jack Waggoner, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2003 available at Center bar life gay bar Gay Bars interview Jack Waggoner Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript transcript University of Kansas video