4 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE Pride Guide 2009 www.GayPeoples Chronicle.com
Street is a party for first Youngstown Pride festival Organizers surprised by larger-than-expected turnout
by Anthony Glassman
Youngstown-Doubling the most generous pre-event estimates, the inaugural Youngstown Pride festival brought 1,000 people downtown for a day of entertainment, camaraderie and LGBT pride.
Anita Davis, one of the three main organizers of the event, laughed while recollecting what she and her co-organizers hoped.
"Carlos Rivera, one of the other organizers, said before the event that he would be happy if we had 50 people show up," she recalled. "Kim Akins, the third organizer, though we would get a couple hundred. I thought we'd get about 500."
"We were all pleased to have guessed wrong," she said.
The June 6 festival, which took up a block of Phelps Street downtown, was a modest start to what will likely be a growing
event.
A stage blocked the West Commerce entrance to Phelps, and entertainment ranging from drag kings and queens to youth performing slam poetry, bands, singers, and the Ms. Pride Youngstown competition kept the crowd entertained throughout the day.
Along Phelps Street's two sidewalks, booths were lined up from organizations like Equality Ohio, People of All Colors Together-Youngstown and others, providing a familiar backdrop.
While the day was clear and hot, not all was sunny in Youngstown that day. The organizers are already learning from a few mistakes. Those were minor, and to be expected from the first Pride festival in the city.
"Doing the set-up at 10 am was not a good idea. It should have been much earlier," said Davis. "We needed more volunteers and we needed to start earlier. We put out the call for volunteers, but we got only a couple."
"We figured that most were waiting to see if we could get it off the ground," she continued. "Some actually told us to our face
"The paper even announced the winner and runner-up of our Miss Gay Pride Youngstown pageant," she noted. "Can you be-
ANTHONY GLASSMAN
ak
Brittney Cheers and her dancers perform the song "Circus" during Cheers was later chosen as Ms.
the Youngstown Pride Festival. Youngstown Pride.
they were waiting to see what we could do."
The festival was the center of attention in the media as well, with the Vindicator newspaper and two local television stations doing stories on the event.
lieve it? The paper running the winner of a drag queen pageant!"
She noted that Brittney Cheers won the competition, with Ruby Tuesday coming in second.
The crowd count is based on police estimates, and officers were present throughout the day in case of trouble, which never came. A single protester with a placard exhorting people to "Remember Sodom" slinked away, dejected, at around 3 pm.
A few local stores, restaurants and bars provided cool oases from the blazing sunlight, as well.
"The downtown events coordinator was really impressed with the turnout," she said.
That turnout means next year, the event will get a larger venue, perhaps Federal Way or the Square.
Interestingly, two of the three organizers are Youngstown police officers who were not out at work. Davis said there has been practically no backlash from their very public coming-out.
"Carlos and I are both Youngstown police officers," she said. "We weren't out yet. Guess we are now. But at the police department, so far there's been nothing negative."
"Hey, our police chief, before the event, questioned why we didn't use the Square instead of the side street," she laughed. “I had to explain to him that we didn't know if we would get the people to fill the Square.'
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Next year, in addition to starting the set-up earlier, the organizers also want to see a wider variety of performers.
"Again, we've been contacted by quite a few local artists who were disappointed at not knowing of the event in advance,” Davis said. "We've been talked at adding a parade to the event. That's a lot of work, but if people really show an interest and sign up to participate, there probably will be a parade."
"It's up to folks to make the commitment," she said.
Cincinnati and Dayton fill two weekends with Pride
by Anthony Glassman
Cincinnati-A two-day festival of music and performance marked Cincinnati Pride on June 13 and 14, while Dayton's
having the dinner, with guests Poppy Champlin and Malcolm Lazin, on June 3 and the festival on June 6.
The Rubi Girls and AIDS Resource Center Ohio were honored at the dinner
BARRY FLOORE, QUEERCINCINNATI.COM
Pride marshals Cheryl Eagleson and John Maddux walk hand and hand as the last part of the Cincinnati Pride parade heads into Northside.
Pride celebration expanded to a week of events that will actually stretch on until the end of the month.
Instead of having the Pride festival on the first Saturday and then the Pride Dinner on the third Saturday as they have in past years, Dayton Pride mixed things up,
for their work in the Miami Valley LGBT community.
Champlin, a comedian, performed for the crowd, and Lazin, organizer of the Equality Forum in Philadelphia, gave the keynote address.
The parade and festival were described
as "record-setting" for the Dayton events, and came the day after Pride Night on the Quad brought a block-party atmosphere to the area around the LGBT center.
The parade was the largest yet for Dayton, and the festival featured local performers giving their all.
Pride Month will wrap up with a picnic at Irelan Park in Kettering on June 28, organized by gay-friendly religious groups around the area. The picnic will begin at 2 pm, and hot dogs and hamburgers will be provided. Guests are asked to bring a dish to share.
Cincinnati, whose Pride festival and parade predate Dayton's, packed the weekend of June 13 and 14 with music and friendship.
This year's line-up brought between 15,000 and 18,000 people out to Hoffner Park, and the parade had 77 entries, larger than last year.
"Last year, the Saturday festival was kind of dead," said Pride chair Bill Abney. "But this year it was much more wellattended. I really think that was due to the entertainment."
"We had several different bands," he continued. "We also had Jason Stuart, who was great."
Saturday's festivities began with Enguard, Cincinnati's independent color guard and dance team, before emcee Quasi was introduced. Along the course of the day, the crowds were entertained by ballet troupe Folie a Trois, the Queen City Rainbow Band's jazz band, Queen B, Quasi, grunge band Pike, retro-rockers Perfect Electric, Jason Stuart, electronic duo Perpetual Ritual and vocalist Frederick Ford.
On Sunday, the festivities began with a pep rally in Burnet Woods before the parade made its way to Hoffner Park. Penny Tration emceed the parade, and then the performers on Sunday kept the crowd going all day long.
Muse, the Cincinnati women's chorus, opened the performance schedule, and was followed by the Cincinnati Men's Chorus, Pride Queen Krystal Kurler, Pride King Seymour Cox, another performance by Frederick Ford, headliners God-des and She; DJ Maurice Harris, the Lixgood Family and Black Mondays.
"Sunday, we had some thunderstorms, but we were able to work past that," Abney said. He credited keeping God-des and She until late in the schedule with part of the day's success.
"They're very well-known from being on The L Word,” he said, noting that a lot of people stayed to see them and they seemed to connect well with both lesbians and gay men.
"I'm so glad we were able to bring them," he concluded.
He pointed to the variety of people from different organizations who were involved in planning this year's festival, noting that representatives from Impact Cincinnati, HRC and the gay-straight alliances at both Xavier University and the University of Cincinnati.
One thing Abney would really like to see next year is even more people volunteering to help plan the event. While the Cincinnati GLBT Center has been organizing it for the last few years, it is not the center's only, or even primary, responsi̟bility.
"They need to realize the center is very limited in its manpower and needs help to do that," he said.
He also noted that people should volunteer early if they want their input to be heard in the planning process.
"We start planning about a year before it happens," he said. "If you truly want to have input and be involved, people need to step up and not assume the community center will do it."