2 20 43 https://history.okeq.org/files/original/0982d06f9a2f92fbf7fe2f9136d901e2.mp4 a9de7829384dba075a9196f77cfcdd6e https://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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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 https://history.okeq.org/files/original/0d426be7c4cbee728bc6662809a1c1e6.pdf 6b7bcb0c286cb5c7ddf8bc5b88622c10 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 Vernon Jones Obituary Description An account of the resource Transcript: Vernon Leon Jones, 88, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, left this earthly plane to be with his late partner Phil Wiley, on February 5th, 2024. He was born in Oklahoma, on May 3rd, 1935. As a gay man, born and raised here, Vernon’s chosen family is vast. He is survived by Hayward Jones, Nekesha Jones, JaKobe Jones, Sue Davis, Fred Hilliard, Arlowe Clementine, Mason Thomas, Rey Thomas, and so many other individuals that claimed Vernon as their friend, family, and elder. Vernon was an active learner, even in his later years. He was always working to understand the world around him and was eternally hopeful for a better world. He was a strong advocate for marginalized peoples and was particularly committed to Queer and Black Liberation. Vernon was a clear Taurus. He was intelligent, dependable, logical, honest, and generous. Vernon spent most of his life focused on making his community better. He was a holder of receipts. A maker of spreadsheets. A true community historian and archivist. Vernon was dedicated to making people safer, both in his career in emergency management and his activist work in the fight against AIDS. He was not a stranger to controversy and was unrelenting in speaking his truth and the truth of the people he loved. In the years before his death, Vernon worked hard to ensure that the legacy of LGBTQ activism in Tulsa was properly recorded and preserved for current and future generations. His substantial archive is now housed in Oklahoma State University’s Archives. This collection will be witnessed by researchers and community members for years to come. Vernon was a connector. He worked hard to bring people together and was always willing to give someone support that needed it. Even in his death, he is connecting individuals over their shared love and respect for him and his life. Vernon fought hard for his community and the legacy of his late partner Phil Wiley. Anyone who knew Vernon was graced with stories of Phil’s life and legacy as well as their love for one another. In lieu of flowers, we ask that you remember Vernon by learning something new, taking a stand on social issues that are important to you, and keeping his life and legacy alive through storytelling. Vernon’s memorial service will take place March 1st at 11 AM at Butler-Stumpff & Dyer Funeral Home (<a href="https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=bfe3dfa29743f8d2JmltdHM9MTcwODY0NjQwMCZpZ3VpZD0xYTQ3OGQzZC1hYmNmLTYxMWUtMDhjNC05ZjI0YWFiYTYwNDUmaW5zaWQ9NTc0Nw&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=3&fclid=1a478d3d-abcf-611e-08c4-9f24aaba6045&u=a1L21hcHM_Jm1lcGk9MTIzfn5Vbmtub3dufkFkZHJlc3NfTGluayZ0eT0xOCZxPUJ1dGxlci1TdHVtcGZmJTIwJTI2JTIwRHllciUyMEZ1bmVyYWwlMjBIb21lJTIwJTI2JTIwQ3JlbWF0b3J5JnNzPXlwaWQuWU43MDl4MTIzMDIxMzUmcHBvaXM9MzYuMTU2OTEzNzU3MzI0MjJfLTk1Ljk2MTc5OTYyMTU4MjAzX0J1dGxlci1TdHVtcGZmJTIwJTI2JTIwRHllciUyMEZ1bmVyYWwlMjBIb21lJTIwJTI2JTIwQ3JlbWF0b3J5X1lONzA5eDEyMzAyMTM1fiZjcD0zNi4xNTY5MTR-LTk1Ljk2MTgmdj0yJnNWPTEmRk9STT1NUFNSUEw&ntb=1">2103 E 3rd St, Tulsa, OK 74104</a>). PDF Text Text 1/8/26, 1:44 PM Vernon Leon Jones - Butler-Stumpff & Dyer Funeral Home & Crematory  Vernon Leon Jones May 03, 1935 - February 05, 2024 Share:    Obituary Event & Services Charities & Donations Gallery Videos https://www.butler-stumpff.com/obituaries/vernon-leon-jones/ 1/4 �1/8/26, 1:44 PM Vernon Leon Jones - Butler-Stumpff & Dyer Funeral Home & Crematory Guestbook Send Flowers Obituary Vernon Leon Jones, 88, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, left this earthly plane to be with his late partner Phil Wiley, on February 5th, 2024. He was born in Oklahoma, on May 3rd, 1935. As a gay man, born and raised here, Vernon’s chosen family is vast. He is survived by Hayward Jones, Nekesha Jones, JaKobe Jones, Sue Davis, Fred Hilliard, Arlowe Clementine, Mason Thomas, Rey Thomas, and so many other individuals that claimed Vernon as their friend, family, and elder. Vernon was an active learner, even in his later years. He was always working to understand the world around him and was eternally hopeful for a better world. He was a strong advocate for marginalized peoples and was particularly committed to Queer and Black Liberation. Vernon was a clear Taurus. He was intelligent, dependable, logical, honest, and generous. Vernon spent most of his life focused on making his community better. He was a holder of receipts. A maker of spreadsheets. A true community historian and archivist. Vernon was dedicated to making people safer, both in his career in emergency management and his activist work in the fight against AIDS. He was not a stranger to controversy and was unrelenting in speaking his truth and the truth of the people he loved. In the years before his death, Vernon worked hard to ensure that the legacy of LGBTQ activism in Tulsa was properly recorded and preserved for current and future generations. His substantial archive is now housed in Oklahoma State University’s Archives. This collection will be witnessed by researchers and community members for years to come. Vernon was a connector. He worked hard to bring people together and was always willing to give someone support that needed it. Even in his death, he is connecting individuals over their shared love and respect for him and his life. Vernon fought hard for his community and the legacy of his late partner Phil Wiley. Anyone who knew Vernon was graced with stories of Phil’s life and legacy as well as their love for one another. In lieu of flowers, we ask that you remember Vernon by learning something new, taking a stand on social issues that are important to you, and keeping his life and legacy alive through storytelling. https://www.butler-stumpff.com/obituaries/vernon-leon-jones/ 2/4 �1/8/26, 1:44 PM Vernon Leon Jones - Butler-Stumpff & Dyer Funeral Home & Crematory Vernon’s memorial service will take place March 1st at 11 AM at Butler-Stumpff & Dyer Funeral Home (2103 E 3rd St, Tulsa, OK 74104). ABOUT US “We will always be kind and we will never take advantage of you or your family at your saddest time” is our promise to you. General Price List BUTLER-STUMPFF & DYER FUNERAL HOME & CREMATORY  2103 E 3rd St Tulsa, OK 74104  (918) 587-7000  info@butler-stumpff.com  Available 24/7 https://www.butler-stumpff.com/obituaries/vernon-leon-jones/ 3/4 � 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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 [2007] Vernon Jones Interview Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcription of Laura Belmonte’s interview of Vernon Jones conducted on February 28, 2007. Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research. Vernon was born on May 3, 1935, near Tulsa and passed on February 5, 2024 in Tulsa. He enlisted in the Air Force and served for four years in the military in cryptographic operations, including two years stationed in Japan. After thirteen years of marriage and two daughters, Vernon came out to his wife and family. He and his partner, Phil Wiley, were co-founders of the Tulsa Gay Alliance in 1971, and they volunteered with the Tulsa Suicide Prevention Hotline. He worked in emergency management. In the mid-1970’s. He served on a task force within the Tulsa Human Rights Commission to research consideration of ordinance changes to address LGBT discrimination. Vernon left his archives to Oklahoma State University. A copy of his October 10, 2021, interview as a part of OSU’s Diverse Gender and Sexuality of Oklahoma Oral History Project is included in Vernon’s oral history folder at OkEq. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 28, 2007 Subject The topic of the resource Vernon Jones Oral History Project Interview from February 28, 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Laura Belmonte, Vernon Jones, Lindsey Killebrew, Matthew D. Williams, Dennis Neill 2007 available at Center Butler-Stumpff & Dyer Funeral Home Butler-Stumpff and Dyer Butler-Stumpff and Dyer Funeral Home Dennis Neill interview Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte Lindsey Killebrew Matthew D. Williams Matthew Williams Obituaries Obituary OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript transcript Vernon Jones Vernon Leon Jones 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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. Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research. 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&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 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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&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. A copy of the transcript is on file in the History Project Archives at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center. 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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 [2006] Kelly Kirby Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 6, 2006 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on May 6, 2006. Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research. Born on November 25, 1953, he graduated from high school in 1971. Faced with a draft number of 25, Kelly joined the Air Force in 1972. While very closeted during his service, while based in California, he would make trips to Santa Barbara and a few other locations to some bars and on occasion attended the Metropolitan Community Church in Santa Barbara as he was dealing with his sexual orientation. After leaving the military in 1975, he returned to Kansas and got involved with a cult Christian Group, The Way. In 1977, he married and they had 4 children. In 1980, they moved to Oklahoma City, he soon started a CPA practice and by 1986 relocated to Tulsa. He joined Homosexuals Anonymous as part of dealing with his conflicts with sexuality, family and religion. In 1990, his wife and Kelly agreed to separate and eventually divorce. He became an HIV tester with Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights in 1991 and discusses his further involvement with the gay community and TOHR, serving on the board in the early 1990s and treasurer, president and later serving as TOHR’s accountant. He became active with the local PFLAG Chapter and with the support of Nancy McDonald, joined the national board of PFLAG in 1993. He reviews the difficult environment in the 1993-1994 time period when the Tulsa Human Rights Commission proposed some ordinance changes to address LGBTQ discrimination. Subject The topic of the resource Kelly Kirby Oral History Project Interview from May 6, 2006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kelly Kirby, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2006 AIDS/HIV Air Force available at Center discrimination HIV HIV testing HIV/AIDs Homosexuals Anonymous interview Kelly Kirby Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte Metropolitan Community Church Nancy McDonald OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) PFLAG PFLAG Tulsa Chapter The Way TOHR TOHR Board of Directors transcript Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Board of Directors Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights HIV Testing 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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 [2006] Lamont Lindstrom Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 15, 2006 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on April 15, 2006. Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research. Lamont was born in Oakland, California on May 11th, 1953. At Berkeley, he completed a BA, MA and PhD in anthropology. Prior to spending a year in Australia on a National Science Foundation fellowship, Lamont married. They later relocated to Memphis for a teaching position and then joined the faculty at the University of Tulsa in 1982. In 1984 and 1985, he worked in Hawaii, returned to Tulsa and his wife and Lamont had 3 daughters. By 1994, he became more focused on his interest in same-sex relations. He has been in a long-term interracial relationship and discusses some of the challenges of segregation within the gay community. In 1996 he became involved with Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights, including serving on the board in the 2000s. Subject The topic of the resource Lamont Lindstrom Oral History Project interview from April 15, 2006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lamont Lindstorm, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2006 available at Center interview Lamont Lindstrom Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript segregation TOHR TOHR Board of Directors transcript Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Board of Directors 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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 [2006] Terry Luce Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource January 27, 2006 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on January 27, 2006. Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research. Terry was born in New Jersey in 1933. Served in the 10 military and was in South Korea toward the end of the war. He attended Texas Christian University in Ft. Worth, the University of Maryland and then came to Tulsa in 1968 to join the faculty of the University of Tulsa teaching psychology where he stayed until his retirement in 2005. He became an anti-war activist. In 1976 was asked by then mayor Robert LaFortune to head a task force of the Human Rights Commission exploring if gay people should be protected by city ordinances from discrimination in housing, employment, etc. The one-year study and survey was a ground-breaking effort and received local and national coverage when the report was presented to the Human Rights Commission. With the election of Jim Inhofe in 1978, the work of the Sexual Orientation Taskforce and its recommendations where shelved. In 1993, another committee under the Tulsa Human Rights Commission was formed to add to the work from the 1970s. Attorney Bil Hinkle, co-chair of the committee [Dennis Neill served as the other co-chair] asked Terry to join the new effort, which he did. He discussed the strong negative reaction to the report at the public meetings when it was released. Married to Nancy Moran, Terry was diagnosed with cancer in 2007. He died on November 4, 2020, in Tulsa. Subject The topic of the resource Terry Luce Oral History Project Interview from January 27, 2006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Terry Luce, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2006 anti-discrimination laws Attorney Bil Hinkle available at Center Bil Hinkle Dennis Neill Dennis R. Neill discrimination bans Human Rights Commission interview Jim Inhofe Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte Nancy Moran OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Robert LaFortune Sexual Orientation Task Force Terry Luce Texas Christian University transcript TU Tulsa Human Rights Commission University of Maryland University of Tulsa video https://history.okeq.org/files/original/f72c2df42fc84be737c24550dce17aec.mp4 d517224038d8563bc6f524eb2753e69d https://history.okeq.org/files/original/9c5aa6299e0ece9650f1789f237c463b.pdf fc9870b8c20fb40b7478d0f28e9f551a PDF Text Text Oklahomans for Equality Oral History Interview with John Madigan Interview Conducted by Toby Jenkins Date: January 13, 2026 Transcribed By: Dennis Neill using Reduct.Video AI, January 25, 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 John Madigan Summary This conversation with John Madigan explores his life journey from a small mining town in Canada to becoming an influential figure in the LGBTQ+ community in Tulsa, Oklahoma. John shares his experiences growing up on a farm, his transition into the oil and gas industry, and his eventual involvement in various LGBTQ+ organizations, including Prime Timers. He reflects on the intersection of faith and sexuality, the challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community, and the importance of advocacy and inclusion for older adults. John's insights provide a rich narrative of resilience, community, and the ongoing fight for equality. Takeaways 2  John was born in a small mining town in Canada.  He grew up on a farm with 12 siblings.  Education was a significant part of his early life.  John transitioned to the oil and gas industry in the 1960s.  He moved to Tulsa in 1990 and became involved in the local community.  John identifies as a gay man and became aware of his sexuality in adolescence.  He has maintained his Catholic faith throughout his life. � John has been actively involved in LGBTQ+ organizations, including Prime Timers.  He emphasizes the importance of community and advocacy for older LGBTQ+ adults.  John believes in the need for ongoing activism to protect LGBTQ+ rights. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Early Life 02:47 Growing Up on the Farm 06:00 Education and Early Career 09:00 Transition to the Oil and Gas Industry 12:02 Life in Tulsa and Community Engagement 15:02 Understanding Sexual Identity 18:02 Faith and Sexuality 20:55 Involvement in LGBTQ+ Organizations 23:48 The Formation of Prime Timers 26:57 Community Building and Advocacy 30:08 Challenges and Triumphs in the LGBTQ+ Community 33:09 Reflections on Aging and Inclusion 36:01 Future of LGBTQ+ Advocacy 38:59 Final Thoughts and Legacy John Madigan Interview Toby Jenkins: Good afternoon. We are here at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center in the Joe and Nancy McDonald Rainbow Library. And we have an interview with John Madigan. John, for archival purposes, tell us your full name, your date of birth, and your physical address. John Madigan: John T. Madigan. 04-24-45, XXXXX, Tulsa. 3 �Toby Jenkins: All right. So we're going to jump right in. John, where were you born? John Madigan: Luscar, Alberta, in Canada. Toby Jenkins: In Canada. So you're from Canada. Is that a big city, small city, little town, hole in the wall? What is it? John Madigan: Well, back in the early 40s, it was a mining town. Today, it's a, what do you want to say? It's got a signpost to say where it was. Toby Jenkins: So you were born there in Canada. And at that time, so 1945, it would have been a mining town. What would the population have been? John Madigan: 400 or 500 people. They're just miners. Toby Jenkins: So it was still just a small town. And did your father work in the mine? John Madigan: Yes. That was his military duty. Toby Jenkins: OK. He was required to do it, or it was his assignment. Was he assigned there for security or for just a? John Madigan: He worked in it. Toby Jenkins: OK. And did your mother work outside the home? John Madigan: No. Toby Jenkins: And how many siblings do you have? John Madigan: 12. Toby Jenkins: 12. And this would have been in 1945 in Canada. And your father was able to support the family with the money he made at the mine? John Madigan: Well, that lasted only after the war was over. Then we moved back to Saskatchewan where he was raised to his parents' homestead. Toby Jenkins: So they had a farm? John Madigan: His parents moved from Ontario to Saskatchewan in 1905 when the three provinces were divided up. And so they had to have people to populate it. So it was just like Oklahoma. You had a homestead. Toby Jenkins: OK. And so you kind of grew up on a farm then? Toby Jenkins: How old were you when you moved back to Saskatchewan? 4 �John Madigan: About a year old. Toby Jenkins: Oh, so you were just a toddler. Where are you in the birth order of 12 kids? John Madigan: At the top. Toby Jenkins: You're the oldest? John Madigan: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Well, that's incredible. There was a lot of pressure on you. Now, with 12 children, what was their religious affiliation? John Madigan: They were Roman Catholic. Toby Jenkins: Roman Catholic. That explains the 12 children. So you lived there, and you lived on what would have been your grandparents' homestead. So did you farm? John Madigan: When in 46, 47, we moved to my uncle's farm. And then he moved back to Ontario. And so we had the farm until 2018. Everybody quit farming. Toby Jenkins: What kind of did y'all raise? Crops, cattle, sheep, goats? John Madigan: No goats. No, it was wheat farming. And we had cows on the side for eating purposes. Toby Jenkins: Was there a little school in this little town that y'all went back to? John Madigan: Yeah, we had two. It was called Naomi. It was three miles from the house. And then when we started to go to school, we walked or rode the horse. We didn't get to drive the buggy until we were eight, nine years old. Toby Jenkins: No school bus? John Madigan: School bus? We're lucky we had a car. Toby Jenkins: So you had to go three miles to school. Now was that a Canadian public school, or was that a private Catholic school? John Madigan: Public school. Toby Jenkins: And is that where you graduated from high school? John Madigan: No, that was my elementary. And then they closed it and they consolidated the school district. So we had to move to town to go to school. That's when we found out there was a school bus that worked. 5 �Toby Jenkins: And what was the town, the bigger city? John Madigan: Ceylon Toby Jenkins: And so they had a high school, a public high school. John Madigan: It went from first to twelfth grade. Toby Jenkins: Do you remember what year you graduated from high school? John Madigan: 1964. Toby Jenkins: 1964. How many were in your graduating class? John Madigan: Twelve. Toby Jenkins: Twelve. Wow. Well, that sounds so wonderful. So you were twelve years old. You graduated from a class of twelve, my apologies. And when you finished high school, you had all of these younger siblings. What was your plan? Do you remember what your plan was as a senior in high school? What you kind of dreamed. Did you dream you were going to farm? Or did you dream you were going to stay there? No. John Madigan: No. Farming was not my forte. I was not going to make that as a career and I didn't. Toby Jenkins: So what did you do right after high school? John Madigan: So after high school, then did odd jobs. And then I got a summer job with the highway department. John Madigan: The, what do you want to call it? District office was there in town. Toby Jenkins: So you did that, but you still were staying at home in that area. John Madigan: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: And still helping with your family. John Madigan: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: When did you finally leave there? John Madigan: Then that winter I got a job with the company doing oil and gas exploration from here in Tulsa. Toby Jenkins: In 1965? John Madigan: It's about 67. 6 �Toby Jenkins: 67. Okay. So you're a Canadian farm boy and you went from there to Tulsa, Oklahoma. John Madigan: Well, I spent the winter in Canada doing exploration. And then the next spring he moved us down here to Kansas. That was the first job in exploration down here. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So did you have to have a visa, a work permit? John Madigan: Yeah, I had a work visa. Toby Jenkins: And so that would have been in the 60s. Were you excited about coming to work in the U.S.? John Madigan: Yes, it was a good job. Toby Jenkins: You were just glad to get off the farm. John Madigan: That was something to do. Toby Jenkins: And so you came to the middle of the country and you said you started out in Kansas. And what exactly were you doing in the oil and gas? Were you a roughneck? John Madigan: No. No, it was exploration. We used gravity for our readings. It's similar to seismic, where they drilled holes and used dynamite for their energy. We had a machine that was gravity. It would read the pull of gravity. It changed at every spot that we were in. Toby Jenkins: So eventually, you said you started out in Kansas. Then eventually they moved you to Tulsa? John Madigan: Well, we went from Kansas. That year we went to Iowa. Then from Iowa we went to Nevada. Spent over about a year in Nevada. And then we went to Utah, to north of Salt Lake, Ogden. And worked out on the Salt Lake flat. And then we moved back to Kansas, to Goodland. And then from there, went back to Williston, North Dakota. And then we moved down to San Antonio, Texas in July, so you know what the temperature was there, when the humidity and the temperature were the same. Toby Jenkins: But I would have thought you would have been grateful to get out in North Dakota in the summer. John Madigan: That was coming summer. The fun of job, working exploration, was we worked in the summer in the south and worked in the winter in the north. 7 �Toby Jenkins: Isn't that the way it always is? So while you're bouncing around all over the midsection of America in the oil and gas industry, were you staying in contact with your family? I mean, were you sending money home? John Madigan: No. Toby Jenkins: But you were writing them letters, talking to them. John Madigan: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Your siblings, did you make trips home during the holidays? John Madigan: Every once in a while, yeah. We had vacation time. Toby Jenkins: When did you eventually land in Tulsa? What year would that have been? John Madigan: I came to Tulsa to stay in 1990, in January. Toby Jenkins: So all of those years, would they have you visit Tulsa for companyrelated issues? John Madigan: Yeah, the only time coming to town was just between jobs, change equipment or something like that. Toby Jenkins: And so what was your thoughts of Tulsa in those days when you first were exposed to it? Because that would have been in the days we were the oil capital of the world. John Madigan: Yeah, that was, well, I didn't stay in very long, but it was a nice city, liked it. That's why I come back. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, and do you remember what the company was you worked with, what the name of the company was? John Madigan: They started out as E.V. McCollum & Company. And then when the owner finally, to decide, when he was in his 80s, to retire, it was called Gravimetrics. And we had an office down on South Main, just across the street from Texaco building. Dennis, you'd know where the Texaco building was. Toby Jenkins: All right, so about what age was it you finally moved to Tulsa, officially, permanently? John Madigan: I guess that's 90, that's 35 years ago. You take that from 80, I'm about 50. 8 �Toby Jenkins: You were in your 40s, late 40s. Okay, so all of this time you're here, did you become a U.S. citizen, or did you maintain your Canadian citizenship? John Madigan: Yeah, I still got my Canadian citizenship. I couldn't give it up, I couldn't afford to. Toby Jenkins: Right, so during this time you would have been a young adult man. Did you ever marry? Did you ever have children? John Madigan: No. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So you were a farm boy, and you landed this job, and it took you all over the country. How do you identify? What is your sexual orientation? John Madigan: Gay. Toby Jenkins: So you consider yourself a gay man. When did you begin to be aware that you were different than other people, different than other farm boys? Speaker 3: 13. Toby Jenkins: So you began to be aware of some differences when you were an adolescent. And when you finally get out of Canada, and you're traveling with this oil and gas company, was this an identity or sexual orientation? You became more aware of it, more confident that that's? John Madigan: Oh yeah, because you met different people in different towns. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, so when you would travel to these towns, would there be places to meet other men who were like yourself? John Madigan: Well, there could be, but I wasn't pursuing that. Toby Jenkins: Okay. But you knew that, by then you knew that you... John Madigan: Oh yeah, because you knew. Toby Jenkins: Okay, so when you came to Tulsa, did you meet any other gay people here in Tulsa? John Madigan: Well, that's when I, by 95, that's when I joined Prime Timers. Toby Jenkins: Okay, but that would have been a couple of years after you had arrived. What about when you first arrived in Tulsa? John Madigan: Oh, yeah, we got to know a friend that, he was a Prime Timer too, and he was working at the hotel that I was staying over in West Tulsa. 9 �Toby Jenkins: Okay, do you remember who that was? Was that just a friend, or was that a boyfriend? John Madigan: No, we got to know each other, and his name was Jim Young. Toby Jenkins: Jim Young, okay, very good. Do you remember, when you first moved here, did you go to the gay bars here in Tulsa? Did you find them? John Madigan: I knew of them, but I didn't go to them. Toby Jenkins: Was it because that wasn't your thing, or you were still, you weren't out to people at work? I mean, what was the motivation for kind of segregating yourself from the community? John Madigan: No, it was just not that, I wasn't a bar person. I went to bars when I was working, you know, friends and co-workers. When I was working in different towns, I went to bars, but it was not very often. Toby Jenkins: So, you met this guy, and did he then kind of introduce you to other gay men, the bigger community? John Madigan: No, the conversation got around to it, you know. And he knew people here in Tulsa, because he moved from Eufaula up to Tulsa get away from the kinfolk. Toby Jenkins: Now, you had never married, and you were staying in contact with your family. Did you ever have a discussion with your family that you identified as gay, or did they ever ask? John Madigan: They didn't ask, and so I just kept things quiet. So, I'm sure they, you know, we just don't speak about it. A couple of my brothers, I am sure they're gay. Toby Jenkins: So, we all just, it's just not a conversation. Now, when you were addressing this, was there, did you have any kind of internal turmoil? I mean, did you feel like there was something wrong with you being this way, and so you felt like you needed to date women, or you needed to make everybody think you were straight? John Madigan: No, I just didn't. It was not a topic of discussion, even though I had coworkers that voiced their hetero feelings. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, talking about women all the time. John Madigan: And about gays. You know, they'd run into them in their lifetime, and well, we got talking about it, and they'd run them down, and I'd just cut them off at the knees and say, this is not appropriate to the job. 10 �Toby Jenkins: Okay, so what about, you were born into a Catholic family. Was there, and now, are you still a practicing Catholic? John Madigan: Oh, yeah. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, still identifies Roman Catholic, and where do you attend services? John Madigan: Christ the King, Cherry Street. Toby Jenkins: Was there ever a time where your faith and your sexuality, there was a struggle, or did you come to a resolution? Did you seek out pastoral counseling? John Madigan: No, not really. But I knew that that was not the norm of the traditional religious in the church. Yeah. But just...I had people that had conflicts with their religion and voiced it, you know, but that's just part of the tradition, you know, that was not in, so yeah, you deal with it. Toby Jenkins: Did you ever feel any kind of, um, like you were being attacked or you were being questioned at your church? Did they want to know why you weren't married, or, John Madigan: No. Toby Jenkins: Okay, so you never had a priest or a religious leader who tried to reassure you that you were welcome at the church and maybe talk about that? John Madigan: I never felt unwelcome at any church that I went to. Toby Jenkins: Were there other LGBTQ people in your congregation that you knew? John Madigan: Oh, heck yes, you know them. Toby Jenkins: So, uh, just, just out of curiosity, as an 80 year old Catholic Canadian, what did you think when our previous Pope began to really make waves and say some pretty unexpected things affirming and loving towards LGBTQ people, specifically when he said priests could, um, uh, say a prayer at, uh, at same sex, uh, marriage ceremony, they, you couldn't do the ceremony, but they could, I guess, bless it. John Madigan: Bless it, yeah. Toby Jenkins: What was, what was your thoughts when that happened? John Madigan: That was, well, the, uh, this is the recognition by the church that we're children of God. There's no discrimination. It's only humans discriminate against. We'll always have homophobes. 11 �Toby Jenkins: Were you surprised that the Pope came out so strongly, supportingly, and lovingly of LGBTQ people? No. John Madigan: No. It was, it was in the, kind of in the flow. Toby Jenkins: Okay. John Madigan: It was, the church has, has to, uh, adjust to the society. Toby Jenkins: So the, the present Pope, who's an American Pope, um, do you feel like he's going to continue the work of the previous Pope of inclusion and moving the church towards a more welcoming faith community? John Madigan: Well, they're going to be more open about it. It was not saying that the church was not welcoming to you. They just didn't say anything about it. Toby Jenkins: Very interesting. Anything else you want to say about faith and sexuality or anything about that before? John Madigan: You know, since we’ve worked for the last 40 years or more, we made our voice, our presence known. We live in this country. We're a part of everything. Toby Jenkins: Ok. So it's, um, you're here, you know that you're a gay man, you're in Tulsa, Oklahoma, you've met this one friend, um, and, uh, you didn't really, from what you're told us, you didn't really connect, you know, with the clubs, the bars. Um, were you aware of TOHR, uh, and it's different names, what we call Oklahomans for Equality today? John Madigan: And, uh, I didn't, hmm, may have heard about it, but didn't, you know, make any concerted connection to it until after I, that both of us joined Prime Timers. Toby Jenkins: Okay. John Madigan: And then, and then, then right there you had 40 gay people right in front of you, yeah. Toby Jenkins: So, uh, did, in those, like in the early 90s when it was forming, did y'all meet at the community center? Um, do you remember? John Madigan: We met at the, there was a meeting room at, um, Harvard where the, uh, TOHR had their call center. Toby Jenkins: And their and their HIV testing, yeah. John Madigan: No, it didn't have that, it was, uh, you know, just the telephone. You called in and. 12 �Toby Jenkins: Okay, the helpline. John Madigan: Yeah, the helpline, that's right, and because a couple of the, uh, Prime Timers were working there. Toby Jenkins: Were volunteering on it. And so they would meet there in the meeting room. John Madigan: Yeah, they had a meeting room there. Toby Jenkins: Ok. So, you, you met this friend, and did he tell you about Prime Timers, or were y'all a part of Prime Timers forming? John Madigan: One of his friends that he knew, uh, mentioned it, and, uh. And I think Jim knew about Wesley, which was the founder. Toby Jenkins: Wesley, do you remember his last name? John Madigan Bauer. Toby Jenkins: Bauer, okay. Toby Jenkins: So Wesley had formed a chapter of Prime Timers. For our viewers, please tell us what Prime Timers is, and what it means, and what its mission. John Madigan: Okay. Prime Timers started in Boston. He was a professor, and he wanted to have a group of men of like persuasion for older guys to have a place to go and meet and greet, have fellowship and things. He started the organization in 1983. In 1993, Wesley and Omer started Tulsa Area Prime Timers. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So it was a chapter of a national affiliate. And so did they have monthly meetings, monthly discussion groups? John Madigan: We had a monthly meeting, and we had activities during the month. Toby Jenkins: What were you doing to be connected to the national group? Because I guess by then it probably had chapters all over the country, didn't it? John Madigan: Oh, yeah. Even off in other countries. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, around the world. My awareness of it is, to me, it seems to be having a resurgence. Do you think that's because there's more older men now that we're seeing? Our LGBTQ community, we're seeing a larger group of older, middleaged retired men? 13 �John Madigan: Oh, yes. It's more acceptable and open, and there's less conflict and stigma in this. And then the mission of the organization was to have something for older men to do, meet others. Toby Jenkins: And so it was just for men? John Madigan: Yes, it is just a men's group. Toby Jenkins: How did you handle, if you had an individual who identified as a female person, they wanted to be a part of the group, how did you handle that? John Madigan: Just told them away. When we were at the meeting down at Peoria... Toby Jenkins: On the Brookside location. John Madigan: On the Brookside location, we had just one lady come up and says, can we join Prime Timers? And I says, no, it's a men's only organization. And she says, well, could we start one? I says, yeah, you can start a girls' Prime Timers. Toby Jenkins: And there is a similar organization. I think it's changed its name a couple of times, but it is for older women who identify as lesbian or bisexual. How did you handle individuals who might have been transgender? John Madigan: Well, we had a member that transed while she was a member. And after she transed, then she was out of the group. We didn't ostracize her. She would come to the all activities. Toby Jenkins: So as she transitioned, came into the group identifying as male and transitioned to a female person. And so once she transitioned, she left the group. John Madigan: Yeah, well, she was identifying as female. Toby Jenkins: So that would have been the 90s and you got involved in it. What else would you like to say about Prime Timers? John Madigan: It's a great organization for gay men. Toby Jenkins: Bisexual men. John Madigan: Yes. Toby Jenkins: And you have, I know you'll have lots of brunches and lunches and you go to the movies and I know several of you travel to the National Gathering every year. You have a monthly meeting here at the Center. You have big holiday parties. I went to one of your recent holiday parties. I don't know how, there's probably 60 men in that 14 �house. And it was a blast and I got hand warmers in the gift exchange. I was tickled to death. Toby Jenkins: So Prime Timers, while it's its own separate individual 501c3 and its own program for gay and bisexual men, you had said that you were meeting, you were meeting at the Center. You talked about how the Harvard location, the Brookside location, and then I can, I think the first time I was exposed to you was when we were 21st and Memorial in the meeting room downstairs, which was not super accessible for people who had, people who had difficulty going up and down. When did you begin to get more involved with the organization? I mean, originally it was called Oklahomans for Human Rights and it became Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights and then eventually Oklahomans for Equality. John Madigan: I got into TOHR, oh I guess 97, 98, and just since I worked at nights and Tuesdays was usually my day off. So I'd go down to the Center on Memorial and sit at the meeting. Toby Jenkins: Okay. You would volunteer? John Madigan: No, just got interested. Toby Jenkins: Now were you ever involved in PFLAG with Nancy and Joe McDonald? John Madigan: Oh yes. Got connected at Fellowship [Congregational Christian Church] when they were having meetings there. Toby Jenkins: Okay. John Madigan: Nancy. TOHR. Then after that, then they got to, they got started with the Pyramid Project and just one day I got roped in by Sue and Marcy. Toby Jenkins: Okay. And what was the, if you, for our viewers, tell us what the Pyramid Project was? John Madigan: The Pyramid Project was set up for, for the organization to find a permanent building. So it's in 2004, was it then? Then we finally bought the building. Toby Jenkins: Why did we need a permanent building? John Madigan: Well, because our landlords weren't very good. Toby Jenkins: Wouldn't let us fly a rainbow flag over the building. So you helped with that project? John Madigan: Yes 15 �Toby Jenkins: So were you here that day we bought the building and raised the flag and we had the bagpiper here. What were your thoughts that day after y'all spent how many years? John Madigan: I guess about eight years, you know, convincing the gay community in Tulsa that we got the dirt. Back then we always had to say, well you don't have any dirt so we won't give you any money. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, so by dirt you mean geographical possession of a piece of property. John Madigan: Yeah, and so then when we did, we signed the deed on this building, then we come up and says, okay now, we got the dirt. We want your money. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, and they come across. Toby Jenkins: We all work together. Do you, so you were involved in Prime Timers and you were involved in this organization's formation and supporting the purchase of a permanent building. Did you participate in any of the renovation days that we would have? John Madigan: Oh yeah, When I had days off. John Madigan: when, of course, mornings was... Okay, gay people don't start before nine o'clock. So... Toby Jenkins: So, I want to, I don't want to miss it. Is there anything during that time, anything else that stands out in your mind, like pride festivals? Did Prime Timers participate in the pride festivals and the pride parades? John Madigan: Oh, yes. That was our community exposure. Toby Jenkins: That's what people found out about you. So we moved into this building and then y'all started having your monthly meetings here. Do you remember when they, do you remember when they were going to lift the ban on gays in the military? And were you a part of helping me collect names for our wall of honor? John Madigan: Yes, it is right over there. Toby Jenkins: And many of those were Prime Timers, weren't they? John Madigan: Yes Toby Jenkins: And we've lost many of them. John Madigan: Like most of them. 16 �Toby Jenkins: Most of them on the military wall, our wall of honor, which we dedicated that whenever the ban was lifted. And so, do you remember anything you want to say about that and what that experience was like? John Madigan: Well, that was a nice gesture by the organization to honor those people that served for freedom in this country. Toby Jenkins: Right. John Madigan: Even though they had to keep their mouth shut, otherwise they would have been kicked out. Toby Jenkins: Yeah. So when did there begin to be a stronger emphasis on providing programming for older adults? When did that really take off? John Madigan: I guess about 2009, 10, when you run into the SAGE organization. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, Serena Worthington. John Madigan: Yeah, Serena. Toby Jenkins: I heard her speak at Creating Change in Chicago, and it's like, do you remember me coming back and telling you, John, we're going to start a SAGE program? John Madigan: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Because this is what everybody does. And can you tell me about those first few months, maybe that first year, until we finally got it right? John Madigan: Well, it was just like any gay group. It was about older adults and gay people in this country. In this town, didn't. There was nothing for seniors. That what it is all about? It took a lot of voicing and twisting arms. We're not going to kill you just because you're old. Toby Jenkins: So I think you might remember that first year, you and I would create programs. We would have the Area Aging on Aging come. We would have funeral homes, nursing homes come, and nobody would show up. John Madigan: Some still don't today sometimes. Toby Jenkins: Because we just thought we needed to provide programming agerelated. Well, that was a mistake, wasn't it? John Madigan: Well, it was not what they were thinking. Toby Jenkins: Right. 17 �John Madigan: Process. When we brought them there, and the whole intent was just to have those organizations and how they treated us as senior gay and lesbian people in their entities. Now, how were you gonna be treated after you died when you went to a funeral home? Toby Jenkins: Right. John Madigan: Or you went to a senior center? Toby Jenkins: Right. John Madigan: Were you gonna be put in the back room way down in the hall and they show up every couple of days for you because you're gay? Toby Jenkins: Yeah. So it had an advocacy element of it where while we were networking with these senior serving agencies, we were trying to make them more inclusive. John Madigan: Well, and that's what SAGE was all about. Toby Jenkins: Right. So what was it? We finally did that everybody got with it and they decided they wanted to be a part of it. John Madigan: You convinced Serena to have a gay conference here. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, we hosted. John Madigan: And hosted it. And they finally, oh, okay, that's something cool. Toby Jenkins: So you remember how we began to shift our attention from making them aware of resources to social activity like trips and pool parties and luncheons and entertainment, movie days and book story, book reviews. That's when we really began to see it take off and grow. John Madigan: Oh, yeah, because we did other things then just sit around and talk. Toby Jenkins: Talk about old stuff. John Madigan: Well, about each other. And did things that were interesting to people. Toby Jenkins: And more social. John Madigan: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Creating social opportunity. John Madigan: Yeah. 18 �Toby Jenkins: Right. John Madigan: And the trips went to places where the people that are born, raised and lived and worked in this county had never been there. Never been, oh, I've never been here in all my life. Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Museums. John Madigan: Like going down to Fort Gibson. Toby Jenkins: Right. John Madigan: It's been here before the state was a state. Toby Jenkins: Um, yeah, we, activities began to be, in those days we used to have to rent vehicles and eventually we ended up with the equality van. And while we were traveling all over the country going to these things, it was branded so that other people knew about us and how to find us. John Madigan: Well, you couldn't miss it, the advertising name on the vehicle. Toby Jenkins: How did people find SAGE when we started that chapter? Cause we had lots of interesting, do you remember any of the stories about how people just showed up? John Madigan: No, they just showed up and just people come in and say, well, well, first it was something for the senior group and other than, it was geared to them and they felt comfortable. Yeah, the age group was right. Toby Jenkins: What about you? I know you were involved in the veterans wall. Also, our former director, Greg Gatewood, who had been the former director, he used to have an event on Thanksgiving day for older adults who were by themselves. And so I felt like we need to keep that going. Do you remember the days when we finally decided we wanted to create a Thanksgiving dinner here? So people started out as a thing for older adults who were by themselves and then it... John Madigan: Become a community meal. That was giving thanks for us. We had some place to go to and we had a community that you could relate to. Toby Jenkins: And how many people would come to those meals? John Madigan: Couple of hundred. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, and who would help provide the food? 19 �John Madigan: The allied churches. Oh, they'd fight each other trying to see who was going to get there. Toby Jenkins: Over who was bringing green beans or… John Madigan: Or cookies or cake. Toby Jenkins: But that was a huge project, wasn't it? John Madigan: Oh, yes. Toby Jenkins: And then we'd prepare the meals for people who couldn't come so they could have these takeaway meals which would be older adults who were shut in and couldn't. So, you've kind of been involved in so many facets of the community. And so, 80 years old, you look marvelous. I know multiple times you've traveled with the organization to conferences, trying to remember all the ones you went to, because every time we went to Creating Change, I would drag you out and make, I know your favorite one must have been when we took 56 people on a bus to Washington, D.C. John Madigan: Well, that was, you're not gonna forget that trip. Toby Jenkins: No, well, especially getting trapped in the Appalachian Mountains, in the fog, and we had to get out and walk through the mountains to keep the bus, oh, gosh, yeah, that was a… John Madigan: And then when we got there, the city shut down. Toby Jenkins: It was in the middle of the government shutdown under Trump, his original residency, and we marched, didn't we, against Trump and his attack on the LGBT community in his first, first term. So, you're 80 years old. And tell me your thoughts about, your thoughts for the future and your suggestions on what might help us improve to make sure everybody's included. John Madigan: Well, right now, in this day and age, is senior mobility. We have seniors, gay and lesbian seniors, at home that would like to come down here, but can't, don't have any availability to transportation. We had a lady, senior, ask us about coming to the OKEQ Senior Group, but she needed transportation. So, you gotta, that way you gotta have somebody to go pick her up, and her, him, didn't know which one it was, but anyway. Toby Jenkins: Would it be possible to work with non-profit organization, or non-profit or governmental transportation modules to be able to figure out a way to get them here? 20 �John Madigan: Well, yeah, there are other organizations in town that have transportation for their groups, but they don't have, can they fit in that, or do they belong to that? Toby Jenkins: Right. John Madigan: Life Senior Services, or the VA? Toby Jenkins: Possibly, y'all could partner with Tulsa, I forget what it's called, the bus system here has... John Madigan: The Lift. Toby Jenkins: The Lift. John Madigan: But then they, there they have to reserve the pickup time, two, three days out. Toby Jenkins: But that could be something that could be coordinated. John Madigan: Could be, yeah. Toby Jenkins: What else do you think is, when you're thinking of, you're youthful, 80 years old, you're eight decades on Planet Earth, what, do you have concerns about our present situations? Just curious, because this won't happen very often, we've got a reallife Canadian across the table from us, how does it make you feel whenever our present White House leadership is so combative and adversarial with Canada, our nearest neighbor? John Madigan: Our present President is, he's an opportunist and an agitator. He loves poke you on the ribs about things, and it's the things that are done behind the scenes. With the LGBT community, we got to be on guard 25-8 to keep what we got, because it'll go out the window in a flash. Most LGBT people think we got it made. Nah, the kids don't have a clue where we started. That's where the history should start. History 101 to the 20-year-olds, what it was like in 1980. Dennis Neill: This being a history project, this is John with Tay and others, when we drop boxes off for them to help support the resurgence of the history project. So maybe ask him a few questions about his experience with that. Toby Jenkins: Dennis has a picture of you and Tay and some other people in there. What year would that have been? 21 �Dennis Neill: I would say, John, probably around 2002 was when Laura and I relaunched the history project. And I was dropping boxes off. Would that be at Tay's house? John Madigan: Yeah, that's Tay Clare”s house. Dennis Neill: There's a few more pictures with a few more people in it. Toby Jenkins: So what we were talking about is all the different things you've been involved in. So you would have been right there. We got the pictures to prove it. As they say, a photo, it didn't happen. Well, there it happened. And we got you... John Madigan: This group of people here that started this were trying to keep it going. A bunch of women. And most of these women went to MCC. And it was still going back then. Toby Jenkins: Metropolitan Community Church. John Madigan: And it was kind of an outreach for them, too. Toby Jenkins: So this would have been when Dennis was a young man. So that would have been 20... John Madigan: When we were all pups. Toby Jenkins: It would be about 2002. And Dr. Laura Belmonte, who would have been our board president at that time, professor at OSU. And you look like you were involved in relaunching, as Dennis and John, his partner John and Laura Belmonte, wanted to relaunch the history archives and the history project. So that's what this picture is. John Madigan: Yeah, they were going through photos that people had for... Going back for 30 years by that time. Toby Jenkins: I loved what you said. We have our archivist, Amanda. I felt like his last line when he said... We've got Dennis Neill, founder of Oklahomans for Equality, and Amanda Thompson, our archivist. I felt like if you're going to have a promotional, John Madigan's line, History 101, I felt like that could have sold why this, what we're doing, is so critical. Anything else, John, as we come to the end of this, our time together, anything else you would want to say? John Madigan: We have to fight. Keep it going. They'll run us down. That's what the young people have to do. 22 �Toby Jenkins: All right. Well, thank you so much. That concludes our interview with John Madigan here at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center on January the 13th, 2026, at his youthful 80 years old. Addendum: Photos of volunteers at Tay Clare’s house sorting OkEq archival materials, circa 200 2. 23 �24 �25 � 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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] John Madigan Interview Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Toby Jenkins on January 13, 2026. John explores his life journey from a small mining town in Canada to becoming an influential member in the LGBTQ+ community in Tulsa, Oklahoma. John shares his experiences growing up on a farm, his transition into the oil and gas industry, and his eventual involvement in various LGBTQ+ organizations, including Prime Timers and OkEq Seniors. He reflects on the intersection of faith and sexuality, the challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community, and the importance of advocacy and inclusion for older adults. John's insights provide a rich narrative of resilience, community, and the ongoing fight for equality. Subject The topic of the resource John Madigan Oral History Project Interview from January 13, 2026 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource John Madigan, Toby Jenkins, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource January 13, 2026 2026 interview John Madigan OKEQ Oral History Project OKEQ Seniors oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Prime Timers Primetimers Toby Jenkins transcript video https://history.okeq.org/files/original/182841b5bd7e55b943d05de2623c91ee.mp4 6330d87f3fed54f29ed4c8a1f379ad99 https://history.okeq.org/files/original/3a1265439872f9ac4dc74328b7f2c8b7.pdf 71c65239e0bd48317bf6dd3411d1f65d PDF Text Text Oral History Interview with Nancy McDonald Interview Conducted by Laura Belmonte July 18, 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 Nancy McDonald is unrestricted. The interview agreement was signed on July 18, 2004. 2 �OKEQ Oral History Project Nancy McDonald Oral History Interview Interviewed by Laura Belmonte July 18, 2004 Tulsa, Oklahoma Belmonte Here we are. It’s Sunday, July 18, 2004, and we are at the home of Nancy and Joe McDonald in Tulsa, Oklahoma doing an interview for the Tulsa Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender history project. Nancy, we’ll begin with some basic biographical information. Tell us where you were born, a little about your childhood. McDonald I was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Raised on a farm in northeast Nebraska, Beemer, Nebraska. Attended the University of Omaha at Nebraska, graduated from the University of Nebraska school of medical technology. Worked in that career for a number of years. Grew up, really, in a very traditional family, farm values. Tremendous amount of talents and respect for individuals. I grew up with a lot of—particularly from my father—a lot of empathy and understanding for various people and different cultures. As I reflect on that, I think that’s pretty remarkable for a man born in the early 1900s. I married Joe when he was a senior in medical school, followed him to the University of—San Bernardino Charity Hospital. We were in the Air Force for ten years, career in medical. Traveled all over this country thanks to the Air Force. Settled in Tulsa in 1966. Belmonte What were you doing for a living? Were you working outside the home when you moved here in 1966? McDonald No. I stopped working the day our first child was born…full time. Then I taught at the University of California school of medical technology for a year. Then we went overseas to Turkey and to Germany, and we had another child. We returned to San Antonio, Texas, where Joe took his residency in anesthesiology. We had another child, so I was full-time mom. I did not go 3 �back to work until 1975. I went back to work in a totally unrelated field because I had been a community leader in the voluntary integration of Tulsa Public Schools. The school system asked me to come to work to organize the voluntary integration program and to respond to the additional quota for desegregation, to organize a parent involvement program which I had started as a volunteer at Burroughs…also to begin to look at using private donations and foundations for support of public education. Belmonte Had you always been a community volunteer, or did you begin that when you moved to Tulsa? What—were you into that originally? McDonald No, I think I grew up with that whole notion of helping and giving. My parents were very involved in projects in our little town. My mother insisted that I be a part of Girl Scouts, even though that was foreign to rural America. She took me to town so I could be a part of Girl Scouts growing up. I think in many ways, that was just part of my whole growing up experience, was seeking out and helping and being sensitive to other people’s needs. At Christmastime, we always, as a family, made baskets for people who didn’t have food. In the early ’40s, there were lots of natural disasters, flooding, and my parents were always involved in helping people get out of their homes in floods. It was just—I just grew up as part of that; it was just part of my experience. It wasn’t foreign to me to do volunteer work. I don’t think I even had that word at that point. You just saw some needs and you did it. You just helped. We did that in California. I mean, it was a whole new experience for me with the Hispanics. When we went to San Bernardino Charity Hospital and the Hispanics were just moving into Southern California, and they were sleeping on the hospital grounds trying to get medical care. We organized an effort to get tents for people to sleep in. When we went to Turkey, it was—I think that was really my first experiences with a family of support services from the Air Force, which was pretty phenomenal because in Turkey, we lived on the economy. We lived three miles from the base. A lot of American women would come and couldn’t handle it, really had difficulties living on the economy. This was in 1959. So I got very much involved in the family services, which would probably help the families make the adjustment to the Turkish economy, help them to learn the language, to learn about bartering. Then when the men were gone, there was an incredible need for the women in this little town called Yalova, Turkey, which was about a hundred miles south of Istanbul, who really were supportive of one another. Then we did our internship—our residency in San Bernardino, and then we were stationed at MacDill Air Force Base, which was where the F-4 pilots were stationed, and they were the first pilots to go into Vietnam. So many of our friends were shot down over Vietnam and were prisoners of war. Their 4 �wives and families were left in Tampa, so there was always an incredible need for community and support for them because these men were prisoners of war. That was all part of—it was just part of my whole experience. When I moved to Tulsa it was really—I was really lonely. Belmonte What would you describe Tulsa like in 1966? McDonald From my point of view, it was a very difficult city to get acquainted in. It was a very cliquish city. It was just not a very friendly, neighborly community. I had a lot of difficulty because I didn’t know anyone when I moved here. I shouldn’t say I didn’t know anyone, I knew—interesting enough, one person. The reason that we came here is because there was a position that was in—ahead of Joe in residency, and he asked Joe to join his practice. I knew her, and I knew—interesting enough, I knew another woman, who I didn’t know lived here at the time, but she was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base with us, and she just lived a couple blocks from me. I had worked with her in officer’s wives clubs in Lackland, so I knew two people, but it was a difficult city to get acquainted in. It was a very cliquish city because you had to be invited. You had to be invited to be a part of an organization, you had to be invited to be a part of the social element of this community. It was very difficult to break into because if you weren’t from Tulsa, you didn’t know anyone, you weren’t invited to be a part of the Junior Association of Tulsa Boys Home, or Children’s Day Nursery, or Junior League, or any of those things. It was difficult. The Girl Scout council laughs, and they still have this story on record because I was the first person that ever called them—in the summer of 1966; they had never experienced this before—called them in July and asked them if I could be a Brownie leader. I had been a Girl Scout Brownie leader in Tampa, and I wanted that experience for our oldest daughter, Joellen. I didn’t wait until September when they had to “go out and recruit leaders.” I called the council and said, “I want a Brownie troop at Patrick Henry. What do I need to do? How do I get it organized?” They just said, “That’s completely foreign.” People just didn’t do that. Belmonte Did they respond positively? McDonald Yeah, oh yeah. My god, yes. They were excited to have somebody. That really was my introduction into volunteer work in Tulsa, was that I had a Brownie troop. I had another baby, but that was my beginning of my volunteer service. Then from there, I went to the Junior Association of the Tulsa Boys Home. It was an invitation for membership. The second year I lived in Tulsa, I was invited to be a member of the Junior Association of the Tulsa Boys Home. I think in some ways, that was probably my first introduction into social work because this was an organization that…. At 5 �that point, it was a little different. It was sort of the attitude of, “Well, we can buy clothes for the boys, and we can have parties for the boys, and we can organize those kinds of activities.” It was my first…it really was my first introduction into education because—well, there really were two cases. There was the case of the kids that were special education and had tremendous behavioral problems, were kept at the home, were not allowed to attend public school, and I just thought that was wrong. I thought these kids were entitled to go to school, and they were in a classroom in the basement of the home on Sixth and Quincy. They did not have a qualified teacher, and I just got really interested in that and sort of took that on. It’s a tremendous project. The Tulsa Boys Home now—we talked about their educational facility and their classrooms for boys, and it all started in the basement of the home. That’s also where I started tutoring. [Inaudible] he was brought into a Tulsa Boys Home in 1967. He was abandoned in this city. He was African American. He was picked up by the police. It was April of 1967, and the director of the home came into the meeting of the Junior Association and said, “Well, the federal government is going to make us take black kids, and we might as well take this…kid,” although he used a different name to describe him. He was eating out of garbage cans and sleeping in cars around Tulsa. He was the typical example of malnutrition. Although we didn’t know at that point in time, but he was placed at the Children’s Medical Center by DHS [Department of Homeland Security]. He was nine. He had very little language, if any. The social worker, Jerry Dillon, came in and asked if there might be someone who was willing to tutor this kid because if we could help him with language, he could even go to school. So I volunteered. You know, I think the rest people know about. He eventually came to live with us. He was starting center for the University of Tulsa basketball team. Graduated from the University of Tulsa with a degree in elementary education, did not make the NBA, but he was picked up by the pro team in France. He’s played professional ball in France until this past year. He’s part of our family. He married a French girl; they have two children. They’ll be home in a week. He’s fifty-one. He’s bilingual; he’s fluent in French, beautiful child. Belmonte What’s his name? McDonald He grew up in this community known as Clark Jones because when you would ask him his name, he would say “Clark Jones.” He grew up with that name, Clark Jones. His mother came back on the scene when he was a junior at the University of Tulsa and was being recruited by the NBA. It was at that point we learned that his real name was Zackery. He came home from picture day, his senior year picture day at the University of Tulsa, and said, “I think I’ll use my real name,” and so he started using Zackery. Professionally, in France, he’s known as Zackery Jones. We call him Zack, 6 �but many people in this community will know him as Clark Jones because he was an outstanding basketball player at Central High School. We kept him at Central because we thought it was important that he have an experience in integration. He was a key in the desegregation of Central High School. One time the assistant principal called me and said, “Nancy, get down here right now.” It was in the desegregation of Central which was in 1970. He was in the middle of the street, and the black kids were lined up on one side of Cincinnati and the white kids on the other side of Cincinnati, and Clark was in the middle of the street, trying to negotiate all of this between these two groups of kids that had walked out of Central High School in the integration process. He grew up seeing an integrated environment, and yet he was black, so he really struggled with all of this. He didn’t struggle, but he had a lot of sensitivity to it. You know, just pretty phenomenal, really. It’s interesting to talk to him because of what he experienced in the integration at the University of Tulsa. Even in the early ’70s, one time he called, and he and his fellow black players were not allowed to stay at a hotel in Louisiana because they were black. The University of Tulsa didn’t accommodate them, so the white players stayed in one place and the black players stayed in another hotel for colored only. It was just so foreign to him that…anyway, that’s my experience. Belmonte Right. Was it through Clark that you became involved in the desegregation efforts? McDonald Really, I think he was certainly a part of it. Part of it was really selfish because of our second son, was really—this is his mom speaking, but he was very bright. We were in a traditional neighborhood school where he was not really being allowed to move at his own pace. They were just beginning to talk about and—particularly in this community, but also nationwide— curriculum that was individually paced, individualized for each student. The superintendent of the school system was doing some innovative things at that point in time and had built a new school, Columbus Elementary, and had piloted the integrative curriculum, continuous progress at Columbus, at Barnard, and at Lee. So I thought that curriculum would really be good for Jason, our second son. But I couldn’t get to it. They wouldn’t let me transfer out of the neighborhood school. At the same time, the school system was being faced with the integration of the school system. It was court-ordered segregation for the five elementary schools that were built for segregation. Carver Junior High School was closed in the summer of 1971, and six hundred black youngsters were bussed—not six hundred, 1,200 black youngers were forced bussed out of the old attendance zone of Carver Junior High School to five, south side junior high schools. That happened three weeks before school opened. There was a lot of unrest in this 7 �community, both in the black community and the white community. Petitions were flying. I remember one time at the corner of 51 st and Harvard, I was stopped and asked to sign a petition against forced bussing. It was just sort of—to me it was just sort of a—it wasn’t right. There was some things that just weren’t right in this whole thing. There was no one seeking any kind of solution to it, no one seeking any kind of alternative solution. Lines were drawn in the sand between the black community and the white community. They were not—they just forced this on this community. A group of people—it was not my idea—a small group of people, three or four of my friends, really began to talk about the possibility of offering an alternative: voluntary integration. Negotiating with the Board of Education, if we could have a curriculum that we wanted input into staff, hiring, and parent involvement because prior to that there were signs on the doors that said “no parents allowed” in Tulsa Public Schools. If you wanted to go to a classroom to see your child or to talk to your child, that was not allowed. There were signs on the neighborhood school that said no parents were allowed. That was completely foreign to me. That was not part of my experience growing up. Belmonte Was this sort of in loco parentis policy for the system? McDonald Yeah, absolutely. That was what we negotiated with, and we had an assistant superintendent who was very supportive of us. He thought the idea would work because he was interested in expanding his idea of continuous progress, individualized education. He was really innovative, and he said, “I think we can do this. I think we can demonstrate that this will work.” He said to—I guess there were maybe twelve of us—he said, “If you could get maybe forty families, we’ll start this project called voluntary integration.” So we did. We were successful in getting about forty families. We took our kids north to Burroughs Elementary School, which was a demonstration project that voluntary integration would work if you gave parents choices. This is 1971. If you gave parents opportunity to be involved in their children’s classroom, if you gave parents an opportunity to evaluate teachers and to be a part of the hiring process, and also, if you would look at community resources. If you look at that, you can see my job emerge because that was my job in Tulsa Public Schools. We started. It was the first time in the nation that they’d ever heard about voluntary integration, and we had incredible coverage: ABC, we even had a television from Germany came in and televised our kids getting off the yellow school buses and going to an all-black school. Belmonte Have the uprisings in Boston against forced bussing started by this point? McDonald Sure, absolutely. 8 �Belmonte This is of course, really, abutting the national curve. McDonald Absolutely, it was just incredible. This was happening across this nation, forced bussing, in Charlotte-Mecklenburg…there was one we visited in Atlanta and certainly Boston and Delaware, Dover, Delaware. It was pretty incredible. That project was so successful that—and we worked very closely with some leadership in the black community, black ministers and some black community leaders—to really pull us up. At that point, we had sixty percent white, forty percent black, so you always had to be in the majority. That’s a key point in this whole thing. That project was so successful that then Bruce [inaudible] said, “Do you think you could do this for Carver?” As parents, we’re saying, “How do we continue this experience for our children?” A good friend of mine and myself tackled the whole reopening of Carver, and the school board said, “We’ll let you do that, but you have to recruit 150 white kids and seventy-five blacks.” I’m not sure what the number was—we had to recruit 250 and they had to be sixty percent white and forty percent black until they would reconsider reopening Carver. The other thing that was so exciting at that time in this community is that Bob LaFortune was mayor and involved in the whole urban renewal project. He said that if he thought we could do this, that he would get the money to renovate Carver. It took us a while because we didn’t have a school, we didn’t have teachers, we didn’t have principals, we just had an idea that this would work. We were successful. We got that done in October of 1972. We finished Carver in October of 1972. The courts said we could reopen Carver, we could match it, sixty percent white, forty percent black. We had our 250 students, and we would expand it to 500 the next year. Bob LaFortune came through on his promise to renovate it, and we had to hold those students until September of 1973. Then at the same time, the courts came down and said that the school system had to desegregate Booker T. Washington, and then the school board approached us as the parents and said, “Do you think you could do this on a volunteer basis?” Belmonte Is Carver a high school as well? McDonald No, it’s a middle school. We started it as an innovative middle school. It was Tulsa’s first middle school in 1972, ’73 when it opened. Part of that was because Bruce [inaudible] had been at the University of Iowa. He had done his doctorate on emerging adolescents, and how junior high schools really didn’t meet the needs of emerging adolescents. This was a project, really, that had national recognition for what it was doing for the emerging adolescents. It was very exciting. Anyway, then the school system approached us about the desegregation of Booker T. on a volunteer basis, although they had to put it in place alternative plans because they weren’t sure that it would work. Could you really get six hundred white students and 9 �six hundred black students? When we decided to go with the volunteer plan, one of the black leaders got up at the school board meeting and said, “We’re not going to do this because this is our school. The only way that we will consider that is if we have equal status. We’re asking that you go fifty-fifty.” That’s how we came up with this fifty percent ratio, which was absolutely the best thing that ever happened because when that—when the school board decided to go fifty-fifty, we went fifty-fifty at Carver and fifty-fifty at Burroughs. No one was in the majority then, and it just worked so much better. Belmonte Now, had Booker T. Washington historically been an all-black school? McDonald It was an all-black school. It was built as an all-black school. It was built to contain the black community. The black community that lived in West Tulsa was bussed past Webster, past Central to go to Booker T. The black community that lived in Altuma (?), which was a black community in South Tulsa, was bussed past Edison and Central to go to Booker T. I mean, they contained the black community in this school. It was built for segregation, as were five elementary schools, built for segregation, as Carver, built for segregation. They were built to contain the black community. Well anyway, I decided—I shared the whole thing for the development of Booker T. and the recruitment of students to go to Booker T. It was a difficult project. We hired—the principal at Hale exchanged the principalship with Granville Smith at Booker T., black and white. He recruited the faculty, and there’s a lot more history to this, but he recruited the faculty. That summer of 1973, H. J. Green and I had seventy-five meetings with parents, trying to get them to give permission for the kids to go to Booker T. When we went out to the students, the students signed up immediately, but we couldn’t do that; they’re minors. They had to have parent permission, and the parents wouldn’t sign. We soon learned that we had to do this in very small groups, that we had to really talk to parents about their fears. What did they fear? I think we see some themes developing here, that I’ve often said, as I’ve worked in the gay community, that it’s almost like I’m reliving history, because in many of the things that I’ve dealt with in the gay community are the same things that we’ve dealt with in integration, the fear of the unknown, myths. A lot of repetition of central themes in people’s prejudice. What we learned is that if we could meet with parents on a oneto-one or small group basis, we’d get their kids signed up. We eventually made it. It was August, and we were still short 167 students, white students. The black community held their petitions until I got the six hundred whites. As soon as I got the six hundreds whites, then the blacks came in. We had our 1,200 students, and the board of education voted at the last meeting in August to go with the voluntary plan. So we were set. It worked. The rest is history. 10 �Belmonte Now, do you recall—how did people approach you in the community? Did you encounter harassment through your work on these issues? McDonald Well, there were days I came home—one day I came home and had black shoe polish thrown on the front door and called “nigger lover.” Certainly some hate mail, hate messages on the phone and things like that. Belmonte Goes with the territory. Now, it sounds like you had your hems pulled in racial integration, but were you involved in other things at the same time you were doing this? McDonald Yeah. The school system hired me in 1974 because they thought they could just ride on the reputation that we’d established, but it didn’t work because the second year they almost lost it because white kids didn’t come. What we learned is that you had to do this every year. You had to sell a whole new group of parents on this whole concept of black and white, that this was a project that would work. Then the school system was also phased with a court order of desegregating its elementary schools that were built—that were segregated based on the school board policy that said as soon as your race was in the minority, you could transfer out. We had five more elementary schools to desegregate. That’s when Bruce [inaudible] asked if I wouldn’t come to work. I did not have a degree in education, and I never said I did. I developed the whole—maintained and developed the whole magnet school concept: the recruitment of students, the marketing of the school. It was a whole new idea to go out and sell a school, to market a school, to give parents choices within a public school arena. Who heard of that in 1973, ’74, ’75? We really were doing some very innovative work, and I also did lots of school volunteer programs which was parent involvement. I had a grant from the Ford Foundation in New York to do that. I was one of the founders of the national school volunteer program at the national level. I was part of the beginning of the Adopt-a-School Program with a woman from Memphis, Tennessee, and the woman from Dallas developed that whole concept of corporate involvement in public schools, which we merged as Adopt-aSchool and eventually became partners in education program, which was promoted by President Reagan. Had some national recognition from my work for doing that. President Bush, the first president, recognized me and ten other people for our work in community involvement in public schools. That was always the highlight, I think, of some of my work, is I had tea with Mrs. Bush in the White House. Then I also was president of the Girl Scout Council at the same time. I was president of the Girl Scout Council from 1976 until 1983. Belmonte How were the Girl Scouts changing in this era? 11 �McDonald Well, that was a difficult time, because this Girl Scout Council had experienced a tremendous tragedy. Had three little girls that were murdered in Camp Scott in June of 1977. That was difficult because I had made the decision that we would close the camp and move the camp because I just felt that it was important to have a new beginning in this council. We were sued. Two of the families sued the council for negligence, as well as the hunt for Gene Leroy Hart, who was subsequently mistrialed for the murders. That was a difficult time for me because I felt really responsible. I was president of the council, and you look back and think of what were things that you could have done or should have done that would have helped prevent incredible tragedy. I negotiated with the [inaudible] and asked that we move the camp to Camp Tallchief, and [inaudible] was very supportive, and the rest is history. We have an incredible camp out there, Camp Tallchief. I was just out there with four hundred little girls out there having a wonderful time…memory. [Inaudible] council survived. I went through that; I learned a lot from that. I always say grew up that day because I had never dealt with media or law enforcement, parents of lost children. I learned a lot about nonprofit management from that experience. Belmonte The women’s movement is going full tilt in other parts of the United States in the mid ’70s. When do you recall that starting to have an impact in your activist circle in Tulsa? McDonald Well, my first experience with that was the Tulsa Boys Home because I had been so involved and so successful with the junior association. I was president of the junior association. I had done their education component, and they thought that was really valuable—the men thought that was really valuable, so they asked me to be a member of the men’s board. That must have been 1972, ’73. I’m not quite sure what that year was. They couldn’t see anything wrong with that, why I couldn’t just become a member of the men’s board. That was just such an enigma to me; they just didn’t get it. “Why couldn’t you just accept that, Nancy, and be a member of—we think you’re great, and we really want you to be a part of this, but we’re known as the men’s board.” It was the board of directors—now I look at it, and there’s a president of the board of directors of the Tulsa Boys Home, a woman. You had to break that cycle. The other thing that was first—I was also a member of the Thornton Family YMCA [Young Men’s Christian Association]. Here again they thought, “Gosh, I’ve done some work down there,” so they invited me to be a member of the board, but they weren’t quite sure whether or not I, as a woman, could be a member of the board of directors of the YMCA. Could they handle that, or could they do that? It just presented a lot of controversy in the YMCA if they could invite Nancy McDonald, a woman, what would she know about the YMCA? Pardon the fact that I had two little boys that were very active at the YMCA, plus two little girls. It was just crazy. It was 12 �built as a family YMCA. I sort of broke that barrier for that because a lot of controversy in this community: whether or not they could invite a woman to be a member of the board of the YMCA. [Laughter] When you look at that, it was an experience of breaking that in the not-for-profit world. Belmonte It was around this time that TOHR is being formed, and other interviewees have suggested that you’re really starting to see a very small, public presence of the gay community in Tulsa. When do you recall first encountering gay people in your life, either prior to Tulsa and then in Tulsa subsequently? McDonald Well, you know, this was a topic that was not talked about. When I look back at my own growing up, it was not a topic of discussion. I remember Joe talking about an airman that he took care of in Turkey that he thought was probably a homosexual, and he was really—he was just concerned about—I just remember a brief conversation, and as we reflected on that conversation, he said, “I just felt that he was experiencing some really hateful messages on the base.” Another time, I remember us talking about—it was another airman that worked for Joe in surgery at MacDill Air Force Base, and just passing conversation. I was aware that there were people who were attracted to the same sex, but it wasn’t part of my experience. It’s interesting when I look back on the desegregation and the alternative education—we didn’t have that fancy term “magnet;” we called it “alternative.” I think about the kids that came looking for the alternative, and as I look back on them, many of them were gay. I didn’t consciously know that, but I knew that these were kids who needed to have a different kind of experience, who were seeking a different kind of experience for whatever reasons. Many of them talented, bright, young people but were having difficulty in their home school. Really, unbeknown to me, I was taking a lot of gay kids to Booker T., didn’t realize it at the time. But as I reflect back on it and look at it, obviously it was there. I just never, ever made that conscious connection that this was an alternative for gay kids and that maybe we should be doing something with faculty. It didn’t click for me. Yet, we had a faculty that was very sensitive to diversity. We built that school on diversity, racial integration. It wasn’t a factor—a conscious factor in my mind about an alternative for gay kids. I knew that there was something different about these kids that were coming for whatever reasons, and I can tell you story after story of individuals as I reflect back on them and how they came and were looking for an alternative but never, ever discussed their sexuality. Interesting. I really wasn’t really conscious of the gay community in Tulsa until our own daughter came out in 1985, ’86, when we started dealing with her issues, that I then began to think about…. Well, there are lots of things that happened there. Morva came out to us, and I read an article in—I can’t 13 �remember, Woman’s Day or Family Circle—written by a mother whose son was gay. I had made a reference to PFLAG [Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays], so I—January 1 of 1986 when Morva announced, “I think, Mom and Dad, I’m gay,” I looked for that article. I called the national office January 2, and they said, “There’s no one in Oklahoma, and there’s no one in Kansas.” This young woman, her name was Laura, and she said, “There’s no one in Missouri,” and she was just going down; she was just verbalizing this. She said, “There’s no one in Texas.” She said, “There’s this woman in Denver, Colorado, who I think would talk to you.” I was convinced that I was the only mother in Tulsa, Oklahoma who had a lesbian daughter. It was just—I was alone; there wasn’t anybody else. I just thought that I was the only one in the Midwest. Belmonte It certainly sounded like it. McDonald This wonderful woman, Eleanor Lou Ellen, talked to me and said, “You’re not alone,” and all that stuff. She sent me some literature, and so I certainly started reading everything that I could, learning about what our daughter was dealing with. I’m an avid reader, so I read a lot, trying to get up to speed on homosexuality and certainly about what youth were dealing with. Joe and I—Eleanor Lou Ellen and her husband came down to see us. The national organization was just really emerging; it was just starting as a national movement. She came down to see us, and she said, “Why don’t you and Joe think about developing a Tulsa chapter?” We got to thinking about, “it’s pretty obvious that we’re not the only parents in Tulsa, Oklahoma that have gay kids.” I don’t know if this is—this is probably not common knowledge, but I looked in the paper—I was always looking in the paper to see if there was any records, and one Sunday there was in the social concerns column PFLAG: call such-and-such a number. I thought, “Oh my gosh, there’s somebody else in this community.” I don’t mean this in any way to be critical. I called the number and it was a church which I had never heard of, the MCC church, Metropolitan Community Church, and a message. I left a message and said I was interested in attending the PFLAG meeting. Someone called me back and told me where it was. I thought I knew this city backwards and forwards and certainly have been all over this city as part of the school system, and I could not identify where this church was. I went out during the day to see if I could find this church. I swear to god, it was behind bushes, and it was just—I told Joe; I said, “I’m going to go.” He said, “Well, you’re not going to go alone. I’m going to go with you. I don’t know anything about this; we’re going together.” It was March, I think, and we went up to this church. We walked into this room, and it was dark. There were these little, tiny candles all over the room, so you couldn’t see these faces; you couldn’t see people’s faces. They 14 �invited us to come in and sit down, and a woman across the table said, “You’re Nancy McDonald,” and I said, “Yes.” They were showing a film— of course, this was the time of HIV/AIDS was really emerging, and it was very much a crisis. This whole group of people never introduced themselves, and it just sort of ended up [inaudible]. We weren’t quite sure what to think about all that. We went to our second meeting and had the same kind of experience, except there was a woman there who said to me, sort of in the dark, she said, “If you would take this chapter, I’ll help you. I know who you are. I’m a teacher in Tulsa Public Schools.” She said, “I’ll get back with you.” Didn’t know her name, nothing. I was out at the school the following week, and this teacher came up and said, “When are you ready to start PFLAG?” It was through her encouragement, then, that Joe and I decided independently to start a chapter. It was also then that we learned about TOHR, and we went through our meeting. Our first meeting at TOHR was at the library, and Dennis Neal was—I believe Dennis was president. I’m not quite sure about that; I think he was president. He was very active because he was organizing Tulsa’s first HIV testing clinic in west Tulsa. Jim Perry was very active in it, and Jeff Beale, but it was also kind of an interesting experience because there really wasn’t a lot of support. You know, we were parents attending it…it was okay. There’s also a lot of crying going on. We were kind of past the stage. We really were not crying about Morva; we were wanting to learn and be supportive and figure out what we can do. I’ve watched TOHR go through a lot of ups and downs and struggles. We started the PFLAG chapter. No one came to our first meeting—no, I shouldn’t say that. One young man came to our first meeting. He was a young man from Muskogee who was just coming out to his parents. Somehow he had learned about our—and came to our meeting. We had our second meeting at the library, and one of the young men said, “This is not working. People are not going to come to the library because it’s too public.” We moved it to Joe’s office, Surgicare. We held our meetings there for numbers of years. We had our support group meetings in the recovery room, the only support groups we ever had in the recovery room. The chapter just grew—incredible—until we needed to find another space. At that point, then the HIV resource center—that was probably about 1990, spring of 1990, we moved it to the conference room of the HIV resource center. That worked until the outdoor events phase, and then Russ Bennett said, “Why don’t you move PFLAG to my church?” We’ve been meeting at Fellowship Congregationalist Church since the early ’90s. Belmonte Tell us a little more about Morva’s experiences. How old was she when she came out? 15 �McDonald Well, I think as any gay or lesbian young person in the ’80s, early ’80s, and in our subsequent conversations with her, she obviously recognized that she was different, but she didn’t have the words. She didn’t have the labels for it; she didn’t know what it was. She knew that she was attracted to the same sex and experienced that in middle school: probably thirteen, fourteen, typical emerging adolescence. Realized that she wasn’t the same as her peers; she wasn’t attracted to the opposite sex, but here again, did not have the words for it, didn’t know what it was that she was dealing with. Just knew that this was something different. Moved to high school, of course, she was an excellent student, very athletic, excellent soccer player, swimmer. Went to high school and in many ways was certainly different than our other three children. She tended to be more withdrawn, quiet, although she’s five years younger than the next one, she was sort of raised almost as an only child. Wasn’t very communicative. Our other kids were much more engaged in family discussions and give and take. We always had family meals together and lots of lively discussions, and Morva tended just to kind of just stand back and watch all this, not engaging. You would ask her periodically, “Is there something you’re dealing, or you want to talk about it?” “Nope, I’m fine,” just not very communicative. She was obviously attracted to a girl in high school, frankly one that was, I found, very difficult to accept. We put some barriers in front of her that probably were not the best, appropriate. She tended to hide her sexuality by dating. She dated probably the most popular kid at Booker T. I thought he was a great son-in-law, but he was gay. That’s how these kids survived. You know, that was—I don’t think—unusual in the mid ’80s. She dated Allen for whatever they needed—proms, whatever. She went away to school; she went to Tufts. It was when she was a freshman at Tufts that she really dealt with it. Came home her freshman year and said, “Mom and Dad, I think I’m gay.” Then it’s in our ball park, so then we have to deal with it. I’m sure she felt much better; we felt lousy. That’s when we—then the rest is history; we developed PFLAG. Belmonte So you and Joe started PFLAG. Tell me a little bit about Joe’s part in a lot of your activism. It sounds like he’s been amazingly supportive. McDonald Yeah. Joe’s been absolutely fabulous. He’s always said, “I can’t do those kinds of things because of my work.” An anesthesiologist doesn’t have a lot of control over his time. He’s at the mercy of the hospital and the mercy of the surgeons, but he’s tremendously supportive of what we did and what I was all about and was very much a part of PFLAG. He’s done the support groups for years and years and years. He took a little break from it for a while, but he’s back doing it again. In some ways, Joe’s not very patient with parents. He said, “Get over it. This is a fact. Your child is who she is; she’s been here—she’s been very honest with you and open with you, given you a tremendous gift of honesty. Let us help you understand that. Let us 16 �help you understand homosexuality, but then let’s get beyond that and figure out what we can do collectively and make it better for our kids.” Joe has a lot of empathy but not a lot of patience with people. I think as anybody knows, he’s always there, many times doing a lot of the gut work that people don’t always see or appreciate. I often think about—Joe and I have done PFLAG almost for twenty years, and it’s Joe McDonald that sets it up and takes it down, puts away things, and just does that kind of work. That’s just—that’s our roles. Belmonte Describe to me how the chapter developed. You began mingling with the support groups. Is that correct? McDonald Yeah. Traditionally, if any PFLAG chapter grows, it grows out of support. You have a support group that comes together to offer that support for one another, and it’s really helpful for parents to talk to parents. It’s also helpful for gay and lesbians to talk to parents about what they’re dealing with and how they’re dealing with it and for parents to be available for gays and lesbians who are coming out to talk about what they can expect from parents, how to prepare them for what parents may respond and how they may respond. We were really—interesting enough—and I can’t tell you exactly—we must have been probably the fourteenth or fifteenth chapter organized in the country in PFLAG, so we’re really one of the first. We were right on the brink of support because traditionally, that’s all PFLAG did, was to come together and support. I’ve been very controversial at the national level because I said PFLAG had to move beyond that. PFLAG had to move beyond getting together and holding hands and crying because we had gay and lesbian kids, that we needed to move beyond that and think about how we could make the world better for them. It really, in many ways, although I was not alone, it was another faction within PFLAG that moved PFLAG toward its three-pronged admission that we articulated that we would offer support, support always, in any way that we could, but that we would also be much more aggressive in educating ourselves and the broader community, and that we would finally get involved in advocacy. It was in the late ’80s that a new mission was hammered out for PFLAG, which was to support, to educate, and to advocate on behalf of our GLBT kids. I was sort of at that brink of just making that move in PFLAG. They were moving from what I said, a mom and pop organization run strictly by volunteers, to a national organization with a national presence, with a national stat. I became active in PFLAG at the national level probably 198— very shortly after I started the chapter, ’88, maybe. I forget. Dates just kind of mesh, ’88 maybe. I had gone to the Seattle conference. Joe and I went to our first PFLAG national conference, encouraged my Morva. Morva went with us to the PFLAG conference in Detroit, Michigan, and she met us 17 �there. We had a wonderful time. I think it was the first time that all three of us could be really open and honest in an environment that was supportive. Then the second conference we went to was in Seattle, Washington, and it was so disorganized. It just was not functioning. They asked me if I would be a regional director, and I took that position. I subsequently developed chapters in Kansas, chapters in Oklahoma, and chapters in Texas, chapters in New Mexico, chapters in Colorado, really became active in Colorado in amendment two, organized that year fifteen chapters in Colorado in response to amendment two. Organized chapters in Casper, Wyoming, Cheyenne, Wyoming. I’ve done a lot of organizing: Dallas, San Antonio, Houston. Belmonte What do you think the biggest challenge is you’ve faced in your PFLAG work has been? McDonald The homophobia, the bigotry at the national level by our national leaders. It’s pretty incredible. I testified in congress on ENDA [The Employee NonDiscrimination Act]; I testified on Defense of Marriage Act. I never experienced such incredible hate as I did on the Defense of Marriage Act, the judicial panel. I was on the panel with Andrew Sullivan and with Elizabeth Birch. I think we both know that those were incredible individuals. I saw them just brought to tears by their questioning. You know, I think it was that point I really realized the incredible power of PFLAG because I was the third panel member. I went before the judicial committee, and the environment just changed; it was quiet. You could have heard a pin drop in the room that day. I introduced myself as a mother and a grandmother, and they could identify with that. Hyde, Representative Henry Hyde, was—you know, he said some horrible things, but I’m really proud of that. I never flinched in that. I never lost my composure. Although we lost that Defense of Marriage Act, and Steve Largent was the author, I think in some ways, we began to see the tide turning just a little bit. I testified on the first Employment Non-Discrimination Act with Representative—from New Jersey— Belmonte --D’Amato? McDonald D’Amato. Belmonte From New York. McDonald From New York. [Inaudible] That was a difficult one also, but he was really just, at that point, on a fact-finding mission in that hearing. Then I testified in the House of Representatives again, which was not as difficult as the—the most difficult one was the Defense of Marriage Act. That was really difficult. I think when you asked what are the challenges, the challenges are you just continue to pound away and trying to educate people, educate the 18 �people who are the decision makers and policy makers; that’s where it is. Simple. Belmonte Right. Let’s backtrack in some of the advocacy efforts that the PFLAG chapter in Tulsa has taken on at the local level. I know, for instance, you guys were involved in some issues with the library in the mid ’90s. McDonald Well, we had a lot—the library really didn’t want to have a display of gay and lesbian materials, books, et cetera. We had to go before the library board of trustees. We had some support from the board of trustees, from individual members who then said, “Well, this is blatant discrimination, and they ought to be allowed to have a display.” Our first display was the Ku Klux Klan was in town. Although we were not the original intent of the Ku Klux Klan coming, they learned about our library display and demonstrated in front of the library. It was a pretty incredible experience to look at the Ku Klux Klan in their hoods and to hear such hate. You realize this was the Ku Klux Klan; I mean, this was awful. They denounced our exhibit, but that barrier was broken. We handled that; we just had a display. There was not one complaint filed about our display. We’ve had—this is our fourth year. We have it every other year, so it’s eight years since we’ve done that. We have always met with the editorial board in the Tulsa world. I’ve always felt that it’s much better to be pro-active than after-the-fact. Whenever I felt that there was an issue that they needed to be aware of or that they needed—that we needed to bring attention of the editorial board, I called for a meeting, and they’ve always been receptive. Never once have they ever turned me down. Then I went to the editorial board before I started PFLAG and told them what I was going to do because as a community leader, I’ve certainly had a lot of exposure to the editorial board, and I just knew that was the thing to do. I just knew that it was so much better to meet with them and that they’d have a level of trust and respect for me if I did that. Took on advertising department of Tulsa World. PFLAG chapter changed their policies about—could not buy an ad that used the word gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or homosexual in an ad. I took them to task for that, and after—that would be four or five years, finally got that policy changed so we could run an ad. We ran our first project, Open Mind, and could not use those words in the ad that we even paid for. It was a 7,000 dollar ad, and we couldn’t use the words that we wanted to. We certainly have done that. We certainly were involved in Tulsa’s second try to change the [inaudible] policies of the city of Tulsa, served on that subcommittee of the Tulsa Human Rights Commission. I’ve lost track of the number of presentations that PFLAG has made to churches and civic groups and organizations, and schools, and all of that, and the educational outreach. Call that advocacy, you could call it education; it’s all about changing policies. Certainly 19 �changed the Tulsa Public School’s policies on the inclusion of Title IX and discrimination against gays and lesbians, harassment policies. Went before the executive committee of Tulsa Public Schools, and those were changed immediately. There was no trouble, which was very fortunate. John Thompson did it. We were very fortunate. Belmonte What do you think are the biggest issues facing the local GLBT community now? McDonald Well, the biggest one is, of course, the constitutional amendment—the proposed Oklahoma constitutional amendment. Personally, I don’t think there’s any chance of it being defeated; I think that if it’s defeated, it will have to be in a technicality withdrawn from the ballot. Nevertheless, you have to put every effort to making that you educate as many people as possible that this is wrong. This is institutionalized discrimination. It’s wrong. We live in a state that, unfortunately, is very conservative and [inaudible]. Belmonte Has the PFLAG chapter had any success in being racially inclusive? This is an issue that TOHR has never been successful with. McDonald No, we have not. There’s hope, but we’ve not been successful at the national level with PFLAG. This has been a big issue. I think what you have to do is you have to recognize the fact that you’re dealing with different cultures. The African American community is not—it’s not part of their culture to have support groups to get together to talk about their gay and lesbian kids. It’s just not going to happen. I mean, we’ve learned that the hard way. You have to look at a different avenue of delivering information and education to a culture, be it Hispanic, be it Native American, be it African American. You know, the Caucasians, we like to get together, hold hands, and talk about it. That’s not true for the black community. That’s not true in the Hispanic or the Asian American community. What we’ve seen happen is that we have seen the Latino, Hispanic, African American, Asian American people come together to design what it is they need within this arena of support, education, and advocacy. It takes different forms. We learn from the Asian American community that for them, it’s best to have a video that they check out and take home and watch. We’ve learned with the African American community that it’s important to find a religious community that’s supportive and that perhaps through that religious community—I learned this from the Reverend Tim McDonald, who is one of Martin Luther King’s followers in Atlanta and the minister at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. I met with him when I was national president, and he really taught me a lot about how to work within the African American community to try to reach them with PFLAG’s mission. He said if you can identify African American religious leaders who 20 �understand your message, then they in turn then can help you identify your parent support group or define it. In Tulsa—and here again, I think this happened certainly because I—it may be my own ego, but credibility within the black community—so that I could go to some of the black ministers and talk to them about homosexuality. Consequently, they were willing to meet with us, so we had a meeting—I took two young, African American gay men with me. We had two absolutely incredible meetings with them just these past couple months. Did we change any ideas or any of their attitudes? Yes and no. What did emerge out of there was interesting; we identified a minister who was very supportive and who took our video, “All in the Family,” which is a video produced by [inaudible]—I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it’s wonderful. It has, interesting enough, a native Tulsan, whose name is going to escape me now. He’s a professor of African American studies at Harvard, just moved to Princeton— Belmonte Cornel West. McDonald Cornel West. He’s a graduate of Booker T. He’s on the video, and so some of these black ministers knew him, which was very interesting. Anyway, one of the black ministers said, “You know, I think what we could do, Nancy, is we could do a PFLAG chapter in North Tulsa, and I’m willing to host it.” You know, you never know. Sometimes things happen. I was at a meeting a couple months ago for the League of Women Voters, and an African American woman came up to me, who I’ve known for thirty-seven years, and she said, “I need to talk to you, Nancy.” When anybody says that, I know what I’m going to deal with. She said—her son happened to be our son’s roommate at Harvard—and she said, “I need to tell you that my son is gay. You’re the first person I’ve told outside of the family,” and she said, “and I need to find a new church.” She said, “Because I can’t go to this church anymore because every time I go to church, this minister stands up and talks about how awful homosexuals are.” She said, “I can’t stand it anymore because my son’s wonderful, and he’s a physician in Chicago.” She said, “You know how bright he is.” “I know.” I said, “Well, why don’t you go to this church?” knowing darn good and well I was setting her up because now I have a minister and a mother. I’m going to meet with them this week about starting a chapter. I think maybe this might be how we get it going because over the years, I’ve collected all of these names of these African American parents who have called, many of whom I know, but who feel alone and isolated and not willing to come out. Maybe, it just may be that I can get them together now with this woman who’s—everybody knows in this community, and she’s willing to step up. That might work. I don’t know. 21 �Belmonte Worth a try. McDonald Worth a try, but it will have to be done very quietly. I don’t care. As long as it’s there and it’s servicing the needs of people, it will gain momentum and slowly, slowly gain enough confidence to be open enough. What’s that timeline? I don’t know. Belmonte You’ve described some positive experience with religious leaders in this community, and I can’t imagine you haven’t had many negative ones. Can you just tell us a little more about some of the resistance you have gotten? McDonald Well, it’s interesting. There’s certainly been some resistance publicly. One from a minister of a denomination here in Tulsa who’s, interesting enough, was a roommate of the president of the Houston PFLAG chapter, who’s also a minister, Methodist minister. Now I’ve given it away, haven’t I? Don’s son was murdered in Houston. He became very active in the PFLAG chapter in Houston. His roommate is the minister in Tulsa. This minister—every time we go to this church, he will not deal with me. He’ll refer me down to his assistants. He doesn’t want to recognize or will he take a stand on behalf of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people in this community. He’s wellthought of in this community; he’s a religious leader in this community, but he will not touch this subject. I always—sometimes it feels sort of devious. He’s been very active in another organization, a not-for-profit organization and just finished his leadership, and I wrote him a thank-you because he did an incredible job as a leader. He wrote back to me, and he said, “Nancy, I appreciate your note of thanks,” but he said, “I want to tell you, and it means a lot to me because I really respect all that you have done in this community on behalf of gay people.” That’s one-on-one, you see. He can deal with that, but publicly, in his denomination, he just can’t make that bridge. What do you do? Another Baptist minister. Well, I have to tell you, I was scared to death to go see. Absolutely scared to death, because this man is powerful, he is well-known in this community, he sits on the board of trustees at Hillcrest Hospital with me for twelve years. I went to see William about Project Open Mind, and I was scared because this man is incredible; everybody respects him. I got into his office, and he was sitting in his office with his arms folded, and I thought, “Oh, this is going to be awful.” He kept talking, and I kept talking about Project Open Mind with this other PFLAG member who was a member of his church. He finally leaned forward, and he said, “Let me tell you something, Nancy,” and I knew it was just going to be awful. He said, “I want to tell you something. I have a lesbian sister. I can’t do anything from my pulpit, but what do you want me to do individually?” I think that in some ways just tells you what the challenges are within the denom. It’s the denominational challenge collectively. It’s their doctrine, their dogma. 22 �There are not strong enough individuals or enough individuals to raise the questions or make the challenge. Will it come? I don’t know. That’s just sort of how I see it. They operate out here individually. I believe they know what’s right, and yet they do not have enough courage or backbone to step up and make a difference. It takes a real special individual to do that. It’s their job, it’s their denomination, it’s—defines them, and they’re not really willing to buck it. Belmonte Moving to another subject, some of our interviewees have talked a lot about a club called Zipper’s that existed in the ’80s here, and there used to be a lot of police harassment of people who went to this club. You and I discussed privately that—your relation with the Tulsa Police Department. Has PFLAG encountered a lot of victims of hate crimes, and how has PFLAG tried to work with the police department? McDonald I think we’ve seen tremendous changes in the police department, incredible changes within the police department, part of it because of Drew Diamond, part of it I think was a change in the culture of the police department as a whole. I think we have—as an organization, certainly we’re aware of harassment: we’ve had some calls on the help line, we’ve had some calls from individual families of kids being harassed by police with their driving on Memorial or 11th Street or wherever. Here again, I think we’ve had some good relations with the police department, where we can call them and talk to them about it and have some of those issues addressed. I still think there’s a lot of work to be done in the police department, and part of it is in their training program. They use a program—a canned program—out of Dallas called Pace. It’s really very vague; it doesn’t talk about specifics of cultures, and we need to make it much more relevant for police officers. Had some conversations with Chief Dean about it. There’s a lot of inertia right now with the police department and Bill LaFortune, and the race relations committee has been abandoned. He’s organizing a new kind of commission under the auspices of the mayor’s office. Chief Dean will talk to me a little bit about it. I’m not sure where that’s happening. Belmonte Jenny, can you think of any areas that we didn’t touch on? Davis Well, I noticed that you’re experienced in the medical field. How hard is it for a GLBT person in Tulsa to find a supportive doctor or someone that they can talk to about—have you run into that? McDonald There’s evidence, the documents. There’s evidence in the needs assessment that we’ve just completed, the Tulsa Reaches Out needs assessment, which has some specific questions about their physicians. Difficult, which points to the need that there will have to be some work done in the medical society in raising the level of awareness of their gay and lesbian clientele. It’s documented; it’s there. 23 �Belmonte Is there anything you’d like to add? McDonald I could go on and on, Laura. (Laughter) A thousand and one things. Belmonte We appreciate your time. Thank you. That concludes this interview. ------- End of interview ------- Addendum (Dennis Neill January 14, 2026) Nancy McDonald of Tulsa, Oklahoma June 4, 1936 - October 24, 2023 Nancy McDonald, a longtime Tulsa community volunteer and activist, died Tuesday. She was 87. A celebration of life will be held at 4 p.m. Nov. 12 at All Souls Unitarian Church, with a reception to follow. Per McDonald’s wishes, her family invites everyone attending the reception to bring homemade cookies. Known for her vision and tenacity, McDonald was a force for change in Tulsa for well over 50 years, embracing a variety of causes including public school integration, the arts and LGBTQ rights. Notably with the latter, her influence extended throughout Oklahoma and beyond. McDonald and her husband, Joe, were the founders of the Tulsa chapter of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, the first in Oklahoma, and she later served as president of the national PFLAG organization. It was during her tenure as president, in 1998, that the organization extended its mission to include transgender people. McDonald was active on a state and national level in promoting legislation that advanced LGBTQ rights. And when a proposed law threatened that advancement, she was there to fight it. That included testifying before Congress in 1996 in opposition to the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Toby Jenkins, former director of Oklahomans for Equality, said McDonald was a source of needed encouragement for her fellow LGBTQ rights advocates, assuring them that “incrementally, bit by bit, relationships would form and change would come.” “Nancy taught us to show respect and civility to everyone, even if they were hateful to you,” Jenkins said. “If they spoke that way, she believed it was just that their hearts and minds had not been opened or challenged. Eventually the change of heart would come. I will miss that most about her.” A Nebraska native and graduate of the University of Nebraska, McDonald moved to Tulsa with her family in 1966. She didn’t waste any time getting involved in her new community. As a parent of school-age children and PTA member, she joined a small group of Tulsa Public Schools parents in helping with voluntary integration, starting with Burroughs Elementary School. Then, in 1973, district officials turned to McDonald to help integrate Booker T. Washington High School. 24 �Chairing a committee for volunteer recruitment, McDonald led the successful effort to recruit white student volunteers to attend the previously all-Black school, holding a series of meetings with students and parents. Her volunteering led to a full-time job with TPS, coordinating volunteers and leading the further development of the magnet school concept. Motivating more community volunteers to get involved in their public schools was at the heart of McDonald’s love for the Partners in Education program. She participated in a related White House Symposium and wrote the guidelines for PIE groups that were published as a book. She remained involved with PIE through the end of her life. McDonald was also passionate about scouting. She was a former board member and president of the Girl Scouts of Eastern Oklahoma. In that role, she helped guide the organization through the tumultuous time following the 1977 murders of three girls at summer camp. McDonald was recipient of a number of honors and awards. They included induction into the Tulsa Hall of Fame and the dedication of the Nancy & Joe McDonald Rainbow Library in her and her husband’s honor at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center. McDonald’s commitment to the LGBTQ cause began in the 1980s when one of her daughters came out as a lesbian. The experience of supporting her daughter would shape McDonald, and later she became a mother figure to many LGBTQ people who found themselves facing alienation from friends and family. “We called her ‘everybody’s mother,’” Jenkins said. “She was a surrogate parent for so many whose families had rejected them or had not accepted or understood them. There are national LGBTQ leaders who came out of Oklahoma who Nancy mentored about family relationships.” And her motherly influence didn’t end with the LGBTQ community, Jenkins said. “If anyone was marginalized, it became her cause,” he said. Morva McDonald, McDonald’s daughter, said her mother was “just so good at seeing every individual.” “At her core, she was always trying her best to help people be seen, be recognized for who they were. And that’s what allowed her to reach across so many different causes and arenas.” “The issue for her was always helping people be seen. It was a tremendous gift.” For her mother, part of valuing people as individuals included helping them find ways to participate, Morva added. “That’s why we’re asking people to bring homemade cookies to the reception. It was her idea. Baking was a favorite activity of Mom’s with her grandchildren. “Even at the end she was thinking about how everyone could share and participate.” McDonald’s survivors include her husband, Joe McDonald; four children, JoElyn Newcomb, Paul McDonald, Jason McDonald and Morva McDonald; eight grandchildren; a brother, Howard Nellor; and a sister, Sharlene Clatanoff. Memorial donations may be made to the Foundation for Tulsa Schools’ Partners in Education program. To send a flower arrangement in memory of Nancy McDonald, please click here to visit our sympathy store. 25 �Services Celebration of Life Sunday, November 12, 2023 4:00 PM All Souls Unitarian Church 2952 S. Peoria Ave Tulsa, OK 74114 26 � 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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] Nancy McDonald Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource July 18, 2004 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on July 18, 2004. Nancy was born in Omaha, Nebraska and raised on a farm near Beemer, Nebraska. She graduated from the University of Nebraska School of Medical Technology. She married Joe McDonald when he was a senior in medical school. They worked with the Air Force in medical fields for 10 years and settled in Tulsa in 1966 where Joe continued his medical practice. While facing a great deal of pushback, In the early 1970’s , Nancy became one of the leaders of the successful effort to voluntarily integrate the Tulsa Public Schools. She was further involved in the public sphere as head of the Girl Scout Council when 3 girls were murdered at Camp Scott in 1977. She became involved with the Tulsa Boy’s Home where Joe and Nancy soon helped raise the first Afro-American boy admitted to the home. They helped him through school and as a star player on the University of Tulsa Basketball team. Joe and Nancy became involved in the Tulsa LGBT scene as one of their daughters came out in 1986. At that time, Nancy had recently learned of PFLAG and set about creating a Tulsa chapter. Soon after, she became aware of Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights and its work addressing the AIDS crisis. With Joe’s support, she developed a very effective chapter and served as national president of PFLAG and also served on the board of TOHR. She testified before the U.S. Congress against the Defense of Marriage Act. She arranged for pride month displays at the downtown Tulsa City- County Library and led so many other efforts to improve education, children’s welfare, LGBTQ+ acceptance and the work to support open and affirming churches as noted in the interview. An addendum to her transcript includes an obituary as Nancy passed on October 23, 2023. Her beloved and constant supporter Joe McDonald, passed on February 12, 2026. Subject The topic of the resource Nancy McDonald Oral History Project Interview from July 18, 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nancy McDonald, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2004 AIDS AIDS/HIV Air Force Defense of Marriage Act Girl Scouts HIV/AIDs interview Joe McDonald Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte Nancy and Dr. Joe McDonald Nancy and Joe McDonald Nancy and Joe McDonald Rainbow Library Nancy McDonald Nancy McDonald Rainbow Library Obituaries Obituary OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) PFLAG PFLAG Tulsa Chapter Rainbow Library TOHR TPS transcript Tulsa Boy's Home Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) Tulsa PFLAG Tulsa Public Schools Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) University of Nebraska video https://history.okeq.org/files/original/a9833ab5fe8328fbfdef9ec903c20de0.mp4 92825093a4ada74a717cc055997e13ba https://history.okeq.org/files/original/3fc48b689864b8bf66fd6a4fc194b5ac.pdf 67e001a6f4d45e09317b66ff95c3f17b PDF Text Text Oklahomans for Equality Oral History Interview with Nancy McDonald Interview Conducted by Anna Puhl Date: 2021 Transcribed By: Dennis Neill using Reduct.Video AI, April 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 �In 2021, Anna Puhl of the OkEq staff did a short interview with Nancy McDonald in her home. The interview focused on Nancy’s work on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community as a founder of PFLAG in Tulsa, her testimony before Congress concerning the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and involvement with OkEq. Nancy McDonald Interview with Anna Puhl 2021 Nancy McDonald: Well, I think it's important to understand the mission of PFLAG. Yes. PFLAG has three components. It really is supportive of parents and LGBT people who are coming out to their parents on what is this all about. We have come so far since 1987. So we no longer get people coming to PFLAG who are crying because they had gay kids. Then the second component of PFLAG is to educate. Educate ourselves, to educate our family members, to educate our friends, our religious affiliations, the volunteer work that we may do. And the third component is advocacy. And those three prongs hold true for the local chapter as well as the national organization. So the national organization, one of the things that they wanted to support was gay marriage. And we thought, oh, this would never, ever come to be. And then all of a sudden, up pops DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, sponsored by our congressman Steve Largent. And so they were going to have hearings on DOMA and PFLAG was asked to participate. So I went to Washington to participate on the panel discussion before the Justice Committee in Congress. That was, it was an interesting experience. And I was on the panel with Elizabeth Birch, who was at that time a president of the HRC, Human Resources Committee [Human Rights Campaign, now just HRC]. And also Andrew Sullivan, who was a Republican, a gay man, living with AIDS. And we were the last panel to be interviewed. Prior to that interview, Steve Largent walked into the room where we were being interviewed, all of these people were being interviewed about DOMA. And I thought to myself, it was very crowded, there was one seat to my right, the door was on my left, he wasn't going to get by me. And so I stood up and I said, you know, Representative Largent, I'm from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Oh, he was so glad to see me. And then he sort of puzzled, and he said, well, why are you here? And I said, I'm here to testify against DOMA, because that's very hurtful for my daughter and many other LGBT people. At that point in time, I had a hold of his hand. It's a very interesting and funny story. I don't know, I was holding his hand with both of my hands, and I didn't let go, as I was talking about how mean-spirited this piece of legislation was. I think he thought I was contagious, because he kept backing away with me and I wouldn't let go. And there was a photographer from the Washington Post sitting on the floor, snapping these pictures. It's now in the national PFLAG office, Steve Largent almost at a 90-degree angle as he tries to get away from me. So it was sort of funny. But then in the testimony, it was really interesting, because the first person, Elizabeth Birch, testified, and they had her crying, and they attacked her about being a lesbian. The second one was 2 �Andrew Sullivan. Andrew was HIV-positive, he was out, and it was just so meanspirited. And then I was the last person to testify against DOMA, and I took my chair and I just thought to myself, all of these men sitting on this panel are grandparents. And so I introduced myself. I introduced myself as a parent, and a grandparent. And at that point, you could have heard a pin drop in there. And they started asking me questions, and they were sort of mean. You know, I did the best that I could, but I knew when I ended that we were not going to be successful in getting this piece of legislation out of the House. So it moved forward, and then it was such a disappointment to me and to a lot of other people that Bill Clinton signed it. And so that was my one experience in Congress. But I also testified on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Anna Puhl: Tell me about it. Nancy McDonald: And that was, you know, what we were trying to do was to get a national law that you could not fire LGBT people because they were gay. That never really happened, but we picked up, you know, many, many, many, many corporations that just embraced that and put that as part of their policies. And then I also testified on HIV-AIDS drugs and the value of the federal government supporting drugs for HIV-AIDS. So, and that was successful. I feel really good about that one. But I had a number of experiences in Congress and working with Congress on policies to protect our LGBT youth. Certainly in Oklahoma, I worked on the antibullying legislation. It was defeated three times before we finally got it through. And it was a lot of education, one-on-one, with the local congressmen, or the local legislators, I should say. And that's a good piece of legislation. One of the challenges there, it does not specifically say gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender youth. It says youth. And the difficulty in getting that piece of legislation through the Oklahoma legislature is that they would get hung up on gay, lesbian, bi, and trans. And so I met with an attorney from ACLU and he said, don't worry about that, Nancy. What we want to get into that bill is all youth. And when we get all youth, that includes our youth. And so if there's any issue, or if someone files suit against a school district for a child being bullied because they're gay, we can use this piece of legislation. And so that's how we got it through the Oklahoma legislature. But we had to work hard. We never did get gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people in our hate crimes, state-created hate crimes law. It's still a disappointment. Anna Puhl: We have a city ordinance. Nancy McDonald: That's right. We all should be very proud of our city. And the things that have happened in our city government policies, in our non-profit policies, in our corporate policies, in our public schools. Our kids and our teachers are protected. I'm so grateful to Dr. Gist to have continued that even though the former president, I refuse to say his name, the former president immediately abandoned that piece of legislation. 3 �Anna Puhl: Title IX, yeah. What are some challenges that you have overcome in your time, like more specified on OkEq than PFLAG? I love PFLAG stuff. What are some things you've done with OkEq or what are some accomplishments that you think OkEq has done? What are some things, like moments in your history with OkEq that you're proud of? Nancy McDonald: I'm so proud of just having a building that is a safe place for gay, lesbian, bi, trans people. And it is a real tribute to their board of directors and their leadership and the executive director for making that happen. It was a challenge to raise the money for this community center. We should be proud that we did not accept any federal grants, any federal money, any state money. This was raised locally from individuals and corporations and foundations that supported the LGBT community. I'm extremely proud of that. At the last gay pride parade, you know, I was doing it in my wheelchair and I just thought about it. I thought, my gosh, 10,000 plus people. We couldn't even get a parade permit. The city wouldn't let us have a parade. And we walked on the sidewalk to Veterans Park for our first fair community event. It took us two years to get that permit, thanks to Greg Gatewood and his leadership. And then to see the events around the city. And the booths and the people having fun, and it was well done. It was not anything that would make any of us ashamed. I'm always pleased that it's of such good quality, and maybe that's some other coming out of me, but I really want it to be topnotch good quality, something that all of us can be proud of, including parents. Anna Puhl: You brought up something that made me think: hold on, do you want to talk about the library? Nancy McDonald: Okay, I'll talk about the library. Sharon Thoele, who was the executive director of Tulsa Cares- and you know I was part of the founders of Tulsa Cares when we got our first Ryan White money to have a program to service our HIV-AIDS patients and clients- and Sharon Thoele decided that Joe and I needed to be recognized in some visible, tangible way, and so she came up with the idea of the library, and so we thought that was really lovely to have a library in our honor, but, more important than that, to have resources, books and films and videos and whatever pieces of information- for the LGBT community to come in and have a safe place to read and research and do all those things. So yes, Joe and I are very proud of our Joe and Nancy Library. Anna Puhl: I love the Joe and Nancy Library. I work in the History Project a lot, so it's kind of my home base, I think, as here we are in 2021, and I try to think about you know what are the needs. Nancy McDonald: I am still extremely concerned about our kids in public schools, and do we have adequate resources for them at their school level and how do we help our young people address the hate speech that is often directed at them from their peers? That's a big concern. I'm also concerned about how we continue to reach out and try to educate the evangelical person in this community, the churches, you know. I've been in the parades from the very beginning. I've seen the horrible signs. I just think it must be so difficult for LGBT people to walk by those. 4 �I always wanted to roll up to them and say: I've seen your signs for 20 years. You need to get some new ones. I worry about when we put our LGBT people at risk for hate speech. I often reflect on when I testified on DOMA. I know that that room was filled with young LGBT people and they sat there and had to listen to the hate speech from the congressman and I just ache for when that happens. I hope that we can continue to educate that this is no longer an issue. It certainly is better than it was in 1987, but I don't think we can give up and say the job is done- absolutely not. Anna Puhl: This is not a question for the thing, but out of curiosity, at Pride this year did you see anybody protesting? Nancy McDonald: Yes Anna Phul: Okay, I didn't go the whole parade route so I didn't know. Nancy McDonald: They had moved this year. They were up towards the beginning of the parade and they were there with all of their signs and their whistles and hate speech yelling at everybody and it's hateful and thank goodness for the Dykes on Bikes Because they just drove by and made lots of noise in front of them. I'm always grateful for the Dykes on Bikes I've seen I mean I participated in the San Francisco Gay Pride and the New York Gay Pride and I've participated in the 2 AIDS marches on Washington and I'm always grateful for the Dykes on Bikes. Anna Phul: So, how many children do you have and how many grandchildren do you have? Nancy McDonald: Well, we have four children and then we have sort of a semi adopted son. Okay, we never legally adopted him, but he's very much part of our family. And I have eight grandchildren and then Zach our sort of adopted son has two. Our youngest daughter, our gay daughter, went to Booker T. Washington. She's a great soccer player, but this is her mother talking. She went to Tufts University, and she was on the starting squad freshman year and then she has a degree in sociology and women's studies. Wasn't quite sure what she was going to do. She went to San Francisco worked in a law office. Didn't like that, decided that she really would like to be an English teacher of English learners or English language learners. So she went to Stanford and she had a master's and her PhD in education from Stanford and she is Living in Seattle, Washington. She is the headmistress of a private school in Seattle. She is married and she has two children Simon is 17 and Sadie is 14 Anna Phul: Can you were you like did you ever imagine that that she'd be married with two children? Nancy McDonald: No, never. Anna Puhl: Can you say that in a sentence? Does that make sense? Nancy McDonald: I think that every parent dreams about you know, what your children will become. They'll get married, heterosexual, they'll have children. They'll have you know, we will have lovely grandchildren. And you very quickly realize that's 5 �not the case. It is their life. And so when Morva came out we had to reconstruct our hopes and dreams for her. And one of the things was at that point in time, I didn't think she would ever be able to have a family. Not so. And so when she announced to us that she really wanted children, and she wanted us to be a part of that. We said absolutely. We love you no matter what. Held her hand. They're brother and sister [ pointing to a picture]. You know, you just that was not in our hopes and dreams for Morva. Even after she became after she came out, they thought she'll never have a family. But she does, she has a lovely family. Anna Puhl: That's so cool. Yeah,you're gonna like be a showstopper on these things, you know. [ Pointing to Joe McDonald] He can be the quiet one. Nancy McDonald: Super dad. 6 � 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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 [2021] Nancy McDonald Interview Subject The topic of the resource Nancy McDonald Interview with Anna Puhl from 2021 Description An account of the resource In 2021, Anna Puhl of the OkEq staff did a short interview with Nancy McDonald in her home. The interview focused on Nancy’s work on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community as a founder of PFLAG in Tulsa, her testimony before Congress concerning the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and involvement with OkEq. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nancy McDonald, Anna Puhl, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2021 2021 AIDS AIDS drugs AIDS/HIV AIDS/HIV drugs Anna Puhl Defense of Marriage Act Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) DOMA HIV HIV drug study HIV/AIDs HIV/AIDS research interview Joe McDonald Nancy and Joe McDonald Nancy and Joe McDonald Rainbow Library Nancy McDonald Nancy McDonald Rainbow Library OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) PFLAG PFLAG Tulsa Chapter Rainbow Library Sharon Thoele transcript Tulsa CARES Tulsa PFLAG video https://history.okeq.org/files/original/21d02a6d92c0f1bbc38aeacb4b197e21.mp4 d3d143b8975e231e89aee433ebbabac8 https://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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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 https://history.okeq.org/files/original/e5058728974a0f195bd8900e5e7c92a9.jpg 200a294d14881d81dd06ce84750b1c0f https://history.okeq.org/files/original/0dd0cb24915e78deb62c6fbaf1d3e07d.pdf 20d176b1914b1b1833c44428a7b6656c 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 Robert (Bob) Odle Oral History Interview - Feb. 19, 2026 Transcript PDF Text Text Oklahomans for Equality Oral History Interview with Robert (Bob) Odle Interview Conducted by Toby Jenkins (and Dennis Neill) Date: February 19, 2026 Transcribed and Edited By: Dennis Neill using Reduct.Video AI, March 13, 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 Robert (Bob) Odle Summary This interview with Bob Odle offers a deep dive into his life as a gay man, theater professional, and community advocate. Covering his personal journey, the impact of historical events, and insights into Tulsa's cultural scene, it provides valuable lessons on resilience, identity, and activism. Keywords LGBTQ history, theater, Tulsa, activism, personal story, AIDS, gay community, cultural history Key Topics    Bob Odle's personal history and identity The impact of historical events like JFK's assassination and AIDS crisis The development of theater and LGBTQ community in Tulsa Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Background of Bob Odle 02:57 Early Life and Education 05:59 College Experience and Sexual Orientation 08:58 Military Draft and Sexual Identity 2 �11:50 Teaching Career and Coming Out 14:47 Theater Involvement and Gay Community Connections 17:48 Reflections on the LGBTQ+ Experience 20:57 Teaching Philosophy and Curriculum Development 23:56 Theater Companies and Professional Acting 39:52 Theatre Roots and Early Involvement 41:12 Memorable Performances and Traditions 43:39 The Birth of World Action Singers 48:06 The Evolution of Theatre Spaces in Tulsa 53:00 Theater Community Support and Changes 56:39 The Lynn Riggs Theater and Community Engagement 01:02:33 Impact of the Pandemic on Theatre 01:05:27 Personal Loss and Community Involvement 01:08:20 Political Climate and Advocacy 01:10:58 Concerns for Arts and Rights 01:20:21 A Message for Future Generations Robert (Bob) Odle Oral History Interview Feb 19, 2026 Toby Jenkins: Today is February the 19th, 2026. We are at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the Joe and Nancy McDonald Rainbow Library, and we are doing archival work and interview today, and joining me for the interview is Amanda Thompson, our archivist and the founder of Oklahomans for Equality, Dennis Neill. This is Toby Jenkins. Today, viewers, we are very fortunate to have a very special guest. Tell us your name and your date of birth and your address. Bob Odle: Bob Odle, Robert Odle. Date of birth is May 15th, 1945. Bob Odle: My address is XXX in Tulsa. Toby Jenkins: Thank you so much. We're here today, and I want us to tell...you've had such an interesting life, and I want to make sure we get everything, and we appreciate our viewers' interest in this, and so this is...we're going to give you some history that you might have a little trouble finding, so we're going to put it in one place where our viewers can find this information. Do you want me to call you Bob or Robert? Bob Odle: Bob. Everybody calls me Bob, except my sixth-grade art teacher. Toby Jenkins: What are your pronouns? How do you identify your gender? Bob Odle: Mr. He. Toby Jenkins: So, you identify as male? Bob Odle: Yes. 3 �Toby Jenkins: Okay, and could you just, for our time together, we're gonna...how do you identify in your sexual orientation, your...how do you identify? Bob Odle: Well, I'm queer as a $3 bill. Toby Jenkins: Okay, good. So, it's good to know, and for our historical people, that was a phrase we used a lot when we were growing up as kids. Bob Odle: Well, I just heard about the origin of the $3 bill just within the past week. During this Civil War, some of the southern states, as I recall, didn't have really enough gold, and so they issued those $3 bills, or maybe it was the American Revolution. I don't remember, but it was some revolutionaries, and they issued worthless money, and it was $3 bills. Toby Jenkins: So, that's why we have it. That's why they always used it on us. Where were you born? Bob Odle: I was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Bob Odle: Research Hospital. Toby Jenkins: Is your family from Kansas City, Missouri? Bob Odle: Most of my...the Bell side of the family is from Missouri. My four-times greatgrandmother came to Missouri with Daniel and Nathan Boone. Nathan Boone is buried not far from where she's buried, and so most of my relatives are there. The...and the Rileys are there, once they came to this country. The Odles are scattered around western part of Virginia. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Now, when you say she's buried up in Missouri, is she buried near Boone's Lick? (Editor’s note Boone's Lick is the historical site where Daniel Boone’s sons settled around Franklin Missouri.) Bob Odle: Oh, no, that's much farther north. Nathan Boone is much closer to Springfield, and it's a little country cemetery that is largely a family cemetery. I mean, I'm related by blood or marriage to most of the people who are in that cemetery, so she's buried there where the other Bells and the Rileys are. Toby Jenkins: And so you were...your family was in Kansas City at this time, or...? Bob Odle: Yes, they had moved...my grandmother and grandfather had moved to Kansas City, and I think most of my...all of my aunts and uncles were born in Kansas City, and my mother was born there, and...and so that's...that's where I was born. Toby Jenkins: Now, did you grow up there? I mean, was that what you spent your childhood? Bob Odle: Yes. I went to Munger Elementary School, which was named after a farmer who donated that land to the school district, and it was a little eight-room, four downstairs and four 4 �upstairs schoolhouse with a prefab outside for the 7th and 8th grades, and 6th and 7th grades. And so I went to Munger for the first three years, and then North Kansas City had a bond issue, and they built some new schools because that area of Kansas City was growing. They built right across the street from Munger, they built Oak Ridge and just a few blocks from us they built Maplewood. I went to Maplewood for the fourth and fifth grades and then my mother remarried and we moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma where I went to Luther Burbank for one year. TPS has recently sold that building. And then I went to Bell Junior High for two and a half years and then we moved over to 27th Street and I finished the ninth grade and went through high school at Nathan Hale and then got a scholarship to the University of Tulsa. I applied various places but TU gave me a scholarship that paid half of my tuition which was $600 a year. Toby Jenkins: And what year would that have been that you graduated? Bob Odle: I graduated from Nathan Hale in 63 and from TU in 67. Toby Jenkins: And how new was Nathan Hale? Was it a pretty new high school? Bob Odle: It was brand new that first year I went there. Toby Jenkins: Do you remember what your graduating class, how many were in your graduating class? Bob Odle: I contend there were 450 but some people, some members of my class say there were fewer than that. I don't know, I haven't counted the pictures in the yearbook. I keep thinking I must do that and I haven't. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, by the 70s it was up in the 2000s. Bob Odle: Yes, they added a wing. Toby Jenkins: But I think today Nathan Hale's graduating class is about 200. Bob Odle: Well, yeah, they added classrooms to the building. Quite a few classrooms after I graduated. Toby Jenkins: So was your family glad that you were going to school in Tulsa instead of getting accepted someplace else? Bob Odle: Well, they were glad I got a scholarship which was $300 which paid half of my tuition. And my books altogether, my books cost less than $100. Toby Jenkins: I don't think I ever paid $100. What did you study at TU? Bob Odle: I was a theater major. Toby Jenkins: And so this would have been in 1963 when you graduated. What was going on in our country at that time? I mean this was shortly after Kennedy had been assassinated. 5 �Bob Odle: No, it was when he was assassinated. That was a sad day that I remember that day. And the several days afterwards when we had no commercial TV. And Channel 2 played Handel's Largo during all of the station breaks. And we went until Monday after the funeral with no commercials on TV. And 24-hour coverage of the funeral and people visiting the White House and the Capitol. Toby Jenkins: Were you in school when y'all heard this news? Bob Odle: It was just my first time at the Baptist Student Union. They should have told me never to go back. My first time there and I went to class and a friend of mine who had a little portable radio said the president has been shot. And what's he talking about? He's crazy. And then it was during that class, I had humanities at 1 o'clock. It was during that class then that it was announced that the president was dead. I gave a friend a ride home and we listened to the radio. And the radio was covering the funeral and the death of the president. Toby Jenkins: And this would have been your freshman year? Bob Odle: It was my freshman year, yeah. It was a sad day. It was a sad several days. Couldn't believe that in the 20th century a president would be assassinated. I just couldn't believe that. Toby Jenkins: What were you studying at TU? Bob Odle: I was majoring in theater. I had a minor in English lit and a minor in education so I could get my teaching certificate. It was then, and I didn't know this until, I was so naive. I'm incredibly naive, even now. I heard after the first show that the person who played the lead and some other people were gay and, what? And so, later, I think the person who told me that had the hots for me for years. I think I later found out more and more people in the theater department, which is where I hung out, were gay and, oh, okay, I didn't know that. I had no idea. Toby Jenkins: Did you understand what that meant? Bob Odle: Oh yeah, I understood what it meant, but I just didn't know that they were gay and that there were so many. Toby Jenkins: So you were like in Gay Head Start, the theater department at TU. Did you, had you by that time, I mean, by then you're 18, adult, and you're a young male college student. Had you begin to realize about your own sexual orientation or was it? Bob Odle: Yeah, I went through a period, and I think it's not unusual, of denial. And, let's see, I was molested when I was like 12 years old, and I didn't know, I just, I didn't know anything about that. I just, it was when I was 15, I finally said, no, I don't want to do that anymore. Well, I didn't want to do it with somebody older, I wanted to do it with some of my classmates. And I remember when I was like in the seventh grade at Bell, the day we all suited up in our white tshirts and our white gym shorts and our white tennis shoes. And I walked, there were these other boys, and whoa, wow, I mean, this thrill went through me. Whoa, whoa. And so... 6 �Toby Jenkins: So you're in college, and you're in this program, and I guess it was gossip people were talking about people being gay. Bob Odle: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Was it in college that you began to, I mean, did you have a relationship with another student, a person, or? Bob Odle: No, not really, but there was one person who was in my English class who I had seen go to the, it was the Baptist student union, that was the reason I went that one day, and I went back subsequently. I did have the hots for him, and it was, he dropped out of school, I think, after the first semester of our freshman year. And in the past year or so have found out, I suspect he was killed in Vietnam. I suspect he joined the army, that school wasn't really for him. And when he didn't show up at any of our classes, and he was no longer on campus, I did feel like my heart was broken. I mean, I really had a crush on him. Toby Jenkins: So when he left school, I mean, you didn't know where he went, and so did you quit going to the Baptist Student Union after that? Bob Odle: No, I continued to go because I knew some other people who were there. Toby Jenkins: What was TU like in those days, in the 60s? Bob Odle: We had to wear our freshman beanies for the first six weeks. I still have mine somewhere, I tried to find it for the 50th anniversary, that's when I, oh no, this was 50 years after graduation. It was red, alternate red and yellow panels with a red 67 in the front panel, and we had to wear those for the first six weeks, I mean, that was the rule. We had to go to orientation like once a week. We had to take six hours of religion. I took Old Testament history and origin and principles of Christianity. Bob Odle: Later, they reorganized and we didn't have to take any religion, and I'd already taken six hours, and so we had to go to chapel, I don't know, maybe once at least…. Toby Jenkins: A week, once a week, or once a semester? Bob Odle: No, I think once in the first six weeks. The class of 68 had blue beanies with yellow 68 on the front. That was the last class, I think, that had to wear beanies. Toby Jenkins: About how many students do you think were at TU at that time? Bob Odle: I think they've held steady at about 4,000 to 5,000. Toby Jenkins: And so that would have been at the time when Tulsa was the oil capital of the world and TU was known as the top geology, or what am I saying? Petroleum engineer. Yeah, petroleum engineer. 7 �Bob Odle: There was one guy in the theater department who was from Egypt and he was in theater, but he, I think, came for petroleum engineering, which is why a lot of people were there from other states. Toby Jenkins: So you talked about the military and the Vietnam War. Tell us about that. Were there lots of students who were leaving? Bob Odle: I was not aware of any at that time because I graduated in 67, so the buildup, I think, started in 65, but I was not... We had student deferments as long as we were in school. Toby Jenkins: Were you in the military? Bob Odle: No, never. They didn't want me because I was gay. Toby Jenkins: You remember your draft number? Were you subject to a potential call-up? Bob Odle: I don't remember that. That's been so long ago. Toby Jenkins: So they didn't want you because you were gay. Tell us about that. I mean, by then, you were acknowledging…? Bob Odle: Well, I remember they had me come in and talk. There was a sergeant who was in charge of all of the physical examination and whatnot and he had me talk to a captain who asked me if I was sure I was gay, if I was just saying that. He said, I've always remembered, he said, you know this will go on your permanent record. Toby Jenkins: So you actually had to fill out a form that said that? Bob Odle: Yes. That was when... It was like an alumni meeting. All the guys I knew from high school were on the same bus, and some friends from junior high who went to Will Rogers were on the same bus going to Oklahoma City. That was part of what we did that day, was we had to sit down and fill out these forms about what diseases we'd had and if we had homosexual tendencies. So we had to actually fill out a form. Toby Jenkins: You felt like you needed to be honest? Bob Odle: Well, yeah, because I was going to go to law school, and I did go to law school for a while. So I thought, well, I can't lie on this. I think there was a small print that said it was a federal crime or something, and so I didn't want to lie. Toby Jenkins: So the captain tried to talk you out of it, is what you're saying? Bob Odle: He wanted to make sure that I wasn't just... Because a friend of mine said, I remember a party and he was talking about how... He had a high lottery number, so he wasn't chosen, but he said he had the choice of going to Canada or he could queer out. So apparently there were other people who were signing, yeah, they were gay. They had homosexual tendencies or whatever the wording changed to, and so apparently they had encountered that before, people lying about being gay. 8 �Toby Jenkins: This is fascinating to me. I don't know that I've ever had anybody talk about this. I don't know if I've ever interviewed somebody and them talk about the details of that and the possibility that the military wanted to make sure you weren't just using something. So I'm just curious, were you in a room with several people when you were asked this, or was it more of a private discussion? Bob Odle: Well, there was a big classroom with student desks for us to fill out the form, but then the sergeant... I was in a room, an office with the sergeant and a couple other non-coms. He said it would be better to get rid of me then than to go ahead and have me sworn in and have me booted out of the military for being gay. But he decided for some odd reason to have me talk to this, I guess, doctor who was a captain. I mean, I have no idea. They just know he was a captain and they sent me into his office for him to question me about that. Toby Jenkins: So you were able to avoid military service. Do you remember, I mean, you were a college student during these days. I don't know necessarily when… Bob Odle: Well, this was after I graduated that I got that. And it was after I'd taught for a year, too. But teachers had deferments. I mean, I was originally taken after I graduated with this busload of alumni, people I'd known in high school. And then the school board, I got a job teaching and the school board appealed that. And they had just gotten this draft board… I went before these old men. Toby Jenkins: Where were you teaching? Bob Odle: At Central High School, which was downtown. Toby Jenkins: The major campus that's still down there today. Bob Odle: Yeah, PSO owns it now, and AEP. And they had gotten something from Washington that they should give teachers who were teaching deferments or something like that. But I was drafted in the meantime. And so the public schools protested. But it wasn't that I got out of the military. The military didn't want me. Toby Jenkins: Very, very interesting. So well said. Bob Odle: Well, I know of other gay people who've had military experience. Well, and I have one friend who used to live in Tulsa, who lives somewhere in Dallas, I think, now. He was booted out of the Navy and was not happy with being booted out. I mean, there are a lot of gays who want to serve their country and be in the military. But we were not allowed to. And those who were drafted—and I have a friend who was investigated by the Naval Intelligence for a while. They trailed him. And I don't know if he was court-martialed or not. He stayed in the Navy for years and retired as a lieutenant commander. Some of his friends at his funeral said he would have been a commander had there not been that investigation. But he would sometimes go into bathhouses in San Diego or San Francisco in order to have the people who were tailing him leave him alone. 9 �Toby Jenkins: To make them have to follow him in there? Bob Odle: They wouldn't follow him in there. Toby Jenkins: So you said you finished TU and then you started teaching. Bob Odle: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: And you had to get a teacher's certificate. Now, I'm just curious, you're teaching—what did you teach at Central High School? Bob Odle: Competitive speech and drama. Toby Jenkins: So you would have probably been my instructor because that's the kind of stuff I was in in high school. So you were teaching…This would have had you probably 21, 22? Bob Odle: I was just barely 22 when I started teaching. And I taught for four years. My goal was to teach for four years, save some money, and go to law school full-time. I went to law school part-time, but I quit to go full-time, and that was about the time we started doing theater. And I thought, well really, I'd rather be an actor than be an attorney. And so I dropped out of law school. My mother was not happy with it. She got over that eventually. Toby Jenkins: So you're a young adult. Had you begun to have romantic relationships with men, or had you connected to the gay community? I mean, you were teaching school. Bob Odle: Well, I had a lot of friends who, being in theater, I had a lot of friends who were gay, and pretty much openly gay. And so, you know, I would think about that, you know. And eventually, after I was doing theater, and eventually, after years went by, because I was in a state of denial. I mean, I lived with a woman for a while. And... But it was because I was in a state of denial, which is not uncommon, I think, and so eventually when we broke up, because it was not destined to be, she lives with her second husband in South Carolina, I think, and I contact her periodically, or she contacts me. But I didn't really have, I still was so closeted. A lot of people probably knew, but it was sometime then, sometime around 1980, I think, that is after we moved into the Brook Theater in 79, it was about 1980 that I decided to go to, well I had been to, I mentioned this at the breakfast the other day, I had been to Saddle Tramps in Oklahoma City years before. I had no idea it was a gay bar. I mean, when I was, I had done Tea House of the August Moon in Tulsa, and then I was asked to join the touring company in Oklahoma City. So I went down to Oklahoma City, and friends put me on a bus, and I went down there, and I saw this limousine parked across from the bus station, and I thought, well it'd be neat if that was for me. It was! The owner of the theater had a huge Cadillac limousine, and I mean the big, stretched thing, and so he took me to the theater, and there were a couple of people in that play, that were in that cast, that were gay. And then I did another tour, and I think some people were gay, and then a lot of people I knew from the theater were gay. 10 �And a friend moved back for a short time to help us open The Brook, I think, with his boyfriend from New York, and they lived together. And so all of this was like, you know, making an impression on me. And so finally in about 1980, well I was going to tell you about Saddle Tramps. The manager of the Gaslight, we were dark on Monday nights, and so one Monday night, and every other Monday we got paid. And so it was a Monday we got paid, and so we all decided to go to dinner, and we went to the Haunted House, which you have to have reservations before they will tell you the address. It's a fabulous old mansion somewhere in northeast Oklahoma City, and they had fabulous food. And so we went there, and those who didn't have cars, because some people had their own cars, but I'd left mine, I'd taken the bus to Oklahoma City. I was in the manager's limousine with some other people, who I think back, I think at least two of them were gay, maybe three of them were gay. And so we went to the manager's house for a little while, and he lived somewhere in northeast Oklahoma City, and not far from the theater as I recall. But anyway, then we went to a bar. He decided, let's go to a bar. So well, I know the bar we'll go to, and we'll go to this bar. Well, it was Saddle Tramps. I didn't know. And it was a Monday night, so nobody was there except us and maybe a couple other people and the bartender. And I went in to use the restroom at one point, and there was a toilet sitting right in the middle of the floor, and there was a bathtub also there. And this is strange. And so I went out and I told the others, you've got to see that restroom. And so that was the first time. Then later on, somehow a friend of a good friend of mine who had been a colleague in teaching and who'd lived just two doors down from when we first moved to Tulsa, her friend was doing drag for the first time at a place called, I think, the Stage Door on Main. And so a group of us went to see him do drag for the first time, and he was not very good, but there was this person in a mini skirt, a mini dress that had flowers on it, and a bouffant wig, who did Harper Valley PTA, was fabulous. And so that was my first time. So later then, I decided to go to a gay bar, and I went to one called, I think, Caruso's, also on Main, maybe a little bit south of where Stage Door had by that time, I think, become a parking lot, as much of downtown Tulsa is. I went to Caruso's, and I went there a few times, and then I decided to branch out and try some others. And I'd heard of people going to Oklahoma City and staying at what was then called the Pepper Tree, it was the Habana, and now it's a different name, and why it's not the Habana, because it's been Habana since it opened in the 1960s. Because I went there as a school teacher, we had our speech convention at the Habana when it was a Best Western. And little did I know that right next door was Saddle Tramps. And because I had, you know, it was dark, and I was being toted around in this limousine, had no idea where I was or what was going on. And so, I heard of people going there, and so I went down there, and I discovered all of the bars in the hotel and on the Strip. And... Toby Jenkins: So during this time, I know you were an actor in the theater companies, and obviously a professional actor, you were being paid. Were you still teaching at this time? 11 �Bob Odle: No, I went back to teaching after, in 1990, I believe. I worked in theater and doing workshops in schools all over the state. And I went back to teaching. A friend of mine, because the oil companies who had given us money had moved to Houston, so they could be hit by hurricanes and flooded by hurricanes. And so a friend of mine suggested, why don't you go back and get your teaching certificate? So at his urging, I did. And so I got a job teaching. I deducted my trips to Oklahoma City for our annual convention for my income tax, because the motel, I had to have a motel while I was down there. I deducted that for my income tax. I went down there and I would always stay at the Habana, and then there were all those bars right there. Toby Jenkins: So I know that was the gay district still, I guess, today is considered that. So during this time, had you ever come out as openly gay to your other theater friends and folks? I mean, had you pretty well, you said about 1979 was when you began to connect to the gay community. Had you told other people that you were gay? Bob Odle: No, not until the friend who'd come here for the opening of The Brook went back to New York, and he'd come back Christmas to be with his parents. And so after a show, I said, why don't we go to a bar? I know a bar at 18th and Main. So we went to Renegades. And then later we went to Tim's Playroom at 11th and Lewis. And that was the most fun. That was a fun bar. Then, later in the 80s, I went to New Orleans and discovered just about all the bars in the French Quarter and some in the Marigny, and met a person who had been a student at Central High School when I was a teacher there. We went to see a play over at the Marigny Theater, which is connected with a bar and around the corner from some other bars. He died, oh, it's been several years ago, and he had heart problems. He was very intelligent, talented, and so I started making sometimes four trips per year to New Orleans. Certainly, I've gone there every year for about 30 years. When the bathhouse closed down there, I went into mourning for two years. I thought about, should I leave a bouquet of condoms and lube outside the front door? Because people leave bouquets of things. I mean, I was like, I miss that. That was a fun bathhouse. After Katrina, it was a member of the club baths, and I had a club card, and they were good at the club baths all over the country. I went to some of the others, and they were not as good as the Club New Orleans. Toby Jenkins: Were you teaching during this time? Bob Odle: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Were you able to be openly gay? In the early days when you got the deferment, I know the school board was addressing their teacher's deferments. Did anybody at your school know that you had got a deferment because you told them you were gay? Bob Odle: No. 12 �Toby Jenkins: Okay. Then while you were teaching here in Oklahoma, were you openly gay? I mean, did your students know you were gay? Did your principal, your ... Bob Odle: No, not that I know of. I think some suspected, but nobody really cared. I was there to teach speech, and I was focused on that. That was my job, and I was focused on doing that, and I also had a humanities class, and I was focused on spreading this notion of the arts, all of the arts, through the ages. I put together a thing on humanities for the first two years myself until ... It took two years before I found a book that also covered Asia, because of my philosophy that we're too Eurocentric, and kids needed to know. I sandwiched into a short period of time 6,000 years of Chinese and Japanese and Indian Middle Eastern art, which is not doing it ... I mean, that should have been a separate class, but it wasn't, and so I wanted kids exposed to that. Toby Jenkins: So that was curriculum? You were writing curriculum for that? Bob Odle: Yes, I did. Toby Jenkins: Okay. What theater companies were you involved in? You talked about you were a paid actor. Bob Odle: Yeah, I worked with American Theater Company for years, and also during some down times when we didn't do many shows, I also worked with Gaslight. Toby Jenkins: Okay. How long were you involved with American Theater Company? Bob Odle: From its inception in 1970 until ... Well, I did a show 2006, 2008. For four years in a row, we did the Rocky Horror Show, the original stage musical, which is much better than the movie. I frequently think that is the case, that things on stage don't translate to film. Toby Jenkins: Live theater is better. Bob Odle: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Okay. So how many years would that have been with American Theater Company? Forty? Bob Odle: Well, man. Bob Odle: 70 to almost, yeah, almost 40, 37 or so, I worked. I was on the board after that, for some time after that, but I was just too busy to do shows. And so, you know, but I was still affiliated with the theater, but I've not been on the board for like three years now. Toby Jenkins: What performances were you in, what shows? Bob Odle: Well, on my tombstone, which I have already bought, and it is, although I intend to be cremated and have my ashes scattered, my tombstone, which is next to my mother and stepfathers, and near my grandparents and great-grandparents and so on and so forth, yeah, that's Karl Krauss as Ebenezer Scrooge. And Karl has played that role for years and years. And 13 �so, you know, that's me as Brother Oral Love. That's one of the things on my tombstone. I had Robert, I think Robert Leonard Odle, because I'm named after both of my grandfathers. That was a thing in my family for a while after both grandfathers or grandmothers. And so I have Brother Love and Tartuffe, Captain Hook, and there's one other that I keep forgetting, but it's one of my favorite roles I ever played. But those are three of the ones. Toby Jenkins: So I know Christmas, Carol, is kind of like a Christmas tradition. Bob Odle: I know, I never, the second year we did it, one of the reviewers for one of the Tulsa papers said, this needs to be a tradition. And I thought, and well, it has become that. This is, I mean, this fall will be 50 years since Rick and I wrote that. Toby Jenkins: Well, I'll just let you know whether you are surprised that it became a tradition. In my family, I took my children to see it, and now I have grandchildren, and all of us have made it a part of our Christmas tradition. We don't go every year, but we've been multiple times. Bob Odle: I go every year. I mean, I love that story. It's a great story about giving. Dennis Neill: We spent a little more time talking about Joyce Martel and the Oral Action Singers, how that originated and your role in it and the longevity of that show. And did ATC actually own the Brook at that point in time? Bob Odle: No, we rented it or leased it, I don't remember which. But, well, Jerry Pope and Rick Averill and I, Rick always wrote the music. Jerry and I would, he would write one scene, I would write another scene and so on until we wrote the play. And it's about, it was essentially about balanced growth in Tulsa and the reason we didn't have balanced growth. And we did some stereotypical characters. And one was this religious figure, which we called in that musical, Seth Righteous. And so that sort of began it. Then a year later at Cain's, we opened and ran a month with Joyce Martel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, Texas. I think that title was based on something that was on T, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris or something. Anyway, so, but we decided not to call it Seth Righteous, to call it Oral Love because of the combination of the double entendre there with Oral Roberts out South and, you know, and the act of sex. And so we did that at the Cain's for a month and then they decided we were too bawdy for Cain's. That was when the people who had Cain's at the time were having people do the alligator and people were actually having sex in the audience. But we were too bawdy for them. So we moved to the Inferno, which is now the location of a car wash on South Peoria. The Inferno had a big sign outside that said topless lunch from 11 until seven. It was a long lunch. You would eat a lot of food. And we went in there and, like the first day we went in there, one of the dancers named Snowball grabbed me by the crotch and led me into the bar. So we did it there for a couple of months. Then we moved to Captain's Cabin, which was at 41st and Memorial. It's where Richard De La Fonte, a hypnotist, was working most nights and he had the prime weekend nights. Then we closed the show because we were going on the first of our summer tours. 14 �We talked about it during that summer tour and we came back and performed on the roof of the Mayo parking garage for a month- the coldest September on record, I think, and then the hottest day in October- we moved to the ballroom inside upstairs and we had this huge box that was two 4x8 sheets of plywood with about that much wood in between the shelves and all of our props and some of our costumes, and it wouldn't fit in the elevator shaft. So we had to take it to the freight elevator and we had to ride up on top of the freight elevator. We had to take it down to the basement, move the thing in on top of the freight elevator, take the freight elevator up to the floor below the ballroom and open the doors and move the thing out. It was a nightmare. Dennis Neill: So, Bob, this is all in the early 80s, right? Bob Odle: This is 75. Dennis Neill: Oh, okay, so now, which show are you talking about right now? Bob Odle: Joyce Martel. Dennis Neill: I saw it when I moved to Tulsa and I moved here in 77. Bob Odle: That was, oh well, we did the best of Joyce Martel in 76. And then in 77 we were at the Crest Club at the Mayo. We did some shows in the crystal ballroom, some shows we did downstairs in theToby Jenkins : Do you remember where you saw it? Dennis Neill: I thought I saw it at the Brook, but I could be wrong about that, correct? Bob Odle: Yeah, we didn't open that. 61579, that was the code on the security, the security system. Dennis Neill: I remember you and the flaming Bible, right? Bob Odle: Yeah, well, I used that for a long time. Dennis Neill: Okay, maybe it was another show. Bob Odle: We did the best of Joyce Martel, and then we closed that. And then in 77, well, we did some shows in the Pompeian Room, which is an artificial room they put because it was a two-story lobby, but they put a floor in and had this large meeting room called the Pompeian Room and it had Roman murals all around. It was horrible. Dennis Neill: So any pushback from Oral Roberts and the university with regard to the action singers? Bob Odle: Well, not then so much. We moved to the Brook, we continued, we did the Crest Club- and I don't remember what that show was called- right offhand. Then we got this deal with the Brook and we moved in there and we converted it from a movie house to a legitimate 15 �theater and we opened in June of 79 with huge, gigantic those spotlights on Peoria and drew a lot of attention. We had the marquee out front and some friends who had seen the show were friends with a man who made all of Oral Roberts' trinkets that he gave away for a donation and he had a pretty large house out south and it was his 50th birthday and they had happy 50th birthday up on the roof in big letters, eight feet tall. I mean they were huge letters- and so they decided he had all this money and he had everything he wanted, so they would give him something he wouldn't normally get, and so they gave him Brother Oral Love as his birthday, as entertainment for his birthday party, and there was a big crowd there. Some of the provosts of ORU was there and there were some other ORU people there and there were some of the people in the audience who just loved what I was doing. There were some who stood stony faced. Then one year, I don't remember what we renamed the show, we did a new show every year, which was a nightmare to write. But we did a show and I thought, okay, I'm going to write this sermon this year. What would I do if I were totally corrupt? And, you know, so, you know, like Jesus spent time in the desert. Well, I owned a house in Palm Springs. And because that's in the desert. And I had a Mercedes-Benz because there's a Janis Joplin song, Oh Lord, won't you give me a Mercedes-Benz. So I always ended with that. And the thing is that summer, Shoals, Jerry Shoals, I think his name is, published his book about Oral Roberts, the time he had worked for Oral Roberts. And it turned out he did have a Mercedes. He did drive a Mercedes. And he did own a house in Palm Springs. I mean, the stuff, if I were totally corrupt, this is what I would write. This is what I would do. Well, it turned out that was real life. And so Shoals came to see the show at least once. And he was tailed. They had people watching his every movement. Whether Oral actually knew about it or not, I don't know. But some of the people at the university did know what I was doing. But I got paid, so who cares. Toby Jenkins: So during this time, all these years, I assume you were teaching also but still doing theater. Bob Odle: No, at that time I was just doing theater. I had no time. Toby Jenkins: Was the theater community, live theater in Tulsa, did people attend the performances? Did it have lots of support? Bob Odle: We seated 750. That was what the fire marshal would allow in the building. We had lines that went from the box office around the corner and back to the alley, which is where our stage door was. I mean, we could stand and talk before the show to people who were going to see the show, maybe if they got in. Because we only seated 750. Dennis Neill: Those were the good old days. Those were great shows. Bob Odle: They were. 16 �Toby Jenkins: So looking back during those days and presently, is there still a lot of support in Tulsa for live theater? Bob Odle: I think so. I think Theater Tulsa is having, some part of it is the rent at the PAC. And Theater Tulsa has opened their place where I'm going tomorrow night and Saturday night, 55th and Peoria. It's a converted Dollar General store. And there are a lot of little splinter groups that do stuff. American Theater Company, I don't know. I mean, we always did five shows and we did a summer show. And at times we had like two or three shows running simultaneously. When we had Joyce running at the Mayo and Christmas Carol running at the PAC or whatnot. And some other times we did multiple shows at the same time. Because we had 25 people on our staff, full-time, paid. And others working part-time. Toby Jenkins: Who were cast members or writers, producers? Bob Odle: Musicians, concessions, bar workers, so on. Sometimes people in plays. But we had a staff of technicians and actors of like 25. Toby Jenkins: So here at the Equality Center, when we did our renovation about eight years ago, we felt like in our community we were having lots of theater groups that were showing an interest. And especially in our gay community, the queer community, about their interest in theater. One of the passions of some of our folks was that we convert a space into a theater space that could be used for the community, especially to make it accessible for people who wanted to do productions that might not have, you know, they might be cutting edge and be kind of outside of the standard stories to make sure that certainly queer theater had access to those theaters. And of course, it's named after Lynn Riggs, who wrote the story that became the Broadway musical, Oklahoma. Your thoughts about the Lynn Riggs Theater here at the Equality Center and the space and things like that. Bob Odle: Well, I love it. I think it's great. In fact, I was urging American Theater Company, we eventually moved, the Harwells bought the building at 308 South Lansing. And I always said this is a better place because there are posts there and I just like the Lynn Riggs better. I've seen some plays here. I've been to a lot of the Thursday night things and I like this venue. I think it's real neat. American Theater Company went from five shows down to last year, they did four shows. This year, they originally promoted three shows, but they eventually cut that back to one, Christmas Carol. And they do stand up comedy one night. They do, I think they have some drag shows out there. Occasionally, I mean, you know, it's not like the five show season that we used to market and then sometimes a tour or something special during the summer, it's not like that. I think that Christmas Carol hasn't drawn the past couple of years what it used to draw because the people who are managing the theater now determined that Christmas Carol is a tradition. So it doesn't need to be marketed. Well, they still market the Nutcracker. They still market other traditions. It needs to be marketed, people need to know. It needs to not be a secret production. I'm getting off on to my axe to grind. 17 �Toby Jenkins: Where all have you taught school? Dennis Neill: Well, TCC West and TCC North. English, comp. Toby Jenkins: No theater production or? Bob Odle: Well, I did have an acting class one semester and then that got to be a fiasco. It had to do with the management. I don't want to say anything more about that. But I taught at Central High School when it was downtown and I taught competitive speech and I directed plays and then I, well, I taught at Schulter for one year. They needed to bring up their test scores and they hired like the whole new administration and a third of the faculty was new and we brought up the test scores. So they weren't going to close. I hated leaving there because everybody was so supportive but I had this job offer at Mounds. And so it was like half the distance because I'd passed 201st Street halfway to Schulter. And so I took the job at Mounds and I drove down to Schulter to turn in my letters of resignation and to talk to them about, you know, I really liked this. Sorry to be leaving. And so I taught at Mounds for about 30 years and directed some plays, directed competitive speech. We won the state championship three years in a row. I had numerous individual state champions, one of whom never debated, but she is an attorney in Tulsa now and has fabulous commercials on Saturday Night Live and on the evening news. But she never, she persuaded me that she shouldn't take debate to, although she was undefeated. Bob Odle: Now, I'd be better if I took this, Mr. Odle. And so, okay. I mean, she persuaded me. Toby Jenkins: Now, did you ever teach at TU's theater department? Bob Odle: No, I didn't. Toby Jenkins: Were you involved with the? Bob Odle: After I graduated, I did do a play at TU that they then took to some contest at what used to be that horrible theater facility downtown in Oklahoma City [Mummers Theatre]. It's that thing that had boxes going every which way that they finally have torn down. And this should never have been built in the first place. Toby Jenkins: So just for purposes of our interview, the curtains in the Lynn Riggs were donated by TU Theater Department and the risers are from the TU Theater Department right before they closed down. Bob Odle: I know, and they still send me letters asking for money having closed the department that I graduated from years ago. And I think they gave the costumes to the PAC and they gave various other things away. Dennis Neill: We had to replace the curtains because they were out of code. 18 �Dennis Neill: Yeah, I think they had like a 10 or 15 year life. And so we replaced them in about 2020, 2021, something like that. Toby Jenkins: Let's go to our, I was curious to understand the trajectory in Tulsa, the incredible community support for live theater and how things have changed. You've lived through an interesting period. We talked about your, you know, being in college when Kennedy was assassinated. And here we are in 2026. During the, just real quickly, during the pandemic, were you involved in live theater and how the pandemic impacted our theater companies? Bob Odle: No, theater just totally shut down all over the world, I think. Now I, for a year there, I didn't go, except to go to research, I put on my mask and I still have masks in the car. But theater just shut down. And there was money, there was money for businesses that had to shut down and the theater applied for some grants and got some grants. The theater, the theater actually made more money the year we were shut down. They did no shows than some of the years when we'd done shows. Toby Jenkins: Because you didn't have any expenses. Toby Jenkins: Right. So here, I know that you, your family are here. Have you stayed involved in their lives? I mean, have they? Bob Odle: Well, they're all, my stepfather died in 2009 and my mother died just about three months ago. Toby Jenkins: Okay, our condolences. And how old was she? Bob Odle: She was 99 years and eight months and something. Toby Jenkins: Amazing. Bob Odle: She was, she would be, March 15th, she would be 100. And she was, she was doing all of her own, handling all of her business and doing all of her stuff until the very end when she just suddenly, precipitously went downhill. Toby Jenkins: Did she live by herself? Bob Odle: Yes, after my stepfather died, she did. She depended on her neighbor a lot and on me. It wasn't till I had to deal with our, the attorney that deals with our trust, and I had to write down, because I keep my calendars for years, and I had to write down all the times I'd taken her to the doctor and the dentist and the podiatrist and dermatologist and whatnot and to Reasor’s. And I didn't realize the amount of time and the amount of miles I was driving to take care of her. Toby Jenkins: Hmm. Well, I'm glad that she had you, and I'm glad that you had her. Bob Odle: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: And our condolences. What do you keep, what keeps you busy now? 19 �Bob Odle: Dealing with her estate. And a good friend of mine, the one who persuaded me to go back and get my teaching certificate and get a master's degree, he died July 10th of 2024. And so I was named co-executor of his estate. And we had to go to court Tuesday. That's why I couldn't meet Tuesday to deal with, we had a hearing dealing with that estate. I'm hopeful that before the two-year time passes, that we will have this probate all aside, but we had a business, we had three houses, multiple vehicles, and other property to deal with, and it's just been, it's been a nightmare. That has kept me really busy, and dealing with my mother, and now dealing with her estate, and trying to keep my own life going. Toby Jenkins: Now, are you involved in, I know that you're involved here in the organization, you come to some of the programs for older adults. Bob Odle: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: And are you involved in any other advocacy work, or political work, or? Bob Odle: Well, Tuesday, Tuesday I had to drop off the king cake, because it was Mardi Gras at the senior citizen breakfast. Then I dashed to the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Retired Educators Association, because I'm a retired teacher, and I took some sausage rolls to that, and stayed for that meeting. We always have interesting speakers. And so I'm involved in that. Last Friday was the Democrats' monthly luncheon at Interurban, and we have fascinating, well, Cindy Munson, who's the candidate for governor, spoke. And we always have fascinating speakers there. And so I go to that, and then I think there was one night this past week, maybe Tuesday night, Tuesday was a busy day, I went to Connie Dodson's kickoff for her campaign for school board, and I don't live in her district, but the idiot who represents that district now, I would like to see defeated. Toby Jenkins: So you're politically active. Bob Odle: Yes. Toby Jenkins: And what is your present feelings about our, I mean, you've lived a long time, you've seen a lot of things. Bob Odle: Go back to the Truman, I remember when President Truman was reelected. Toby Jenkins: What's your present feelings about our political climate, and how you see, okay, yeah, yeah. Do you have some concerns? Bob Odle: Yes. I'm concerned about whether I've been contributing to a couple of the candidates for Congress, not the one who made a million millions while paying his employees minimum wage, but I've contributed to others, one of whom is my school board member, and I'm contributing, but I'm concerned about whether we're even going to have an election or any more elections. I'm concerned about what the Supreme Court might decide, whether they would give him free license to totally trample or burn or tear up the Constitution. 20 �I mean, a guy who was fired from, I saw a guy who was fired from ABC News on MSNow the other day. I don't remember his name, but I remember the interview where he talked to the president about the things in the Oval Office, or here's a copy of the Declaration of Independence. What does that stand for? Well, it's a declaration, and it deals with love. All of the he hases, that whole list of he hases deals with love, and yes, it's a declaration. That's in its title, the Declaration of Independence. Toby Jenkins: I mean, duh. Bob Odle: How stupid do you have to be? He is pretty stupid. Toby Jenkins: So you see our political climate, and you see the way, not just constitutional norms being eroded, but specifically the erasure of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer people, the blacks, American Indians, the arts being stripped of funding, the Kennedy Center, as a person who's fought and taught and been instrumental in keeping fine arts alive in our culture. What are your thoughts on that? Bob Odle: Well, it's not just gay rights. It's black rights. I mean, he complains that the National Museum of the Black Americans, or whatever that is, this Smithsonian institution, deals too much with slavery. And he has said there should be less emphasis on Martin Luther King Day, or Juneteenth. We should focus more on his birthday. He has insisted that that November 12th be called Columbus Day and not Indigenous Americans Day, which in the city of Tulsa and maybe Oklahoma, a lot of states have declared it to be Indigenous Americans Day. I mean, he and our governor, our governor waves his Cherokee citizenship card around, hate American Indians. He hates black people. I mean, is it any surprise that some of the generals that have been fired have been black? Toby Jenkins: And female. Bob Odle: And the two journalists, well, the commandant of the Coast Guard was female. And the two journalists who were arrested in church were both black. Two of them were black. And he, I mean, his racism goes back generations. He and his father were fined, what, two million dollars by the federal government for not renting to black people in their apartment buildings back in the 60s or 70s. I think that goes from his grandfather coming over here from Germany under suspicious circumstances whereby Germany, when he went back after World War I, Germany refused to have him and send him back here because he had avoided the draft. He'd avoided the draft by coming over here. He didn't tell them he had homosexual tendencies or anything like that. Apparently he didn't. But I don't know. The racism, and his grandfather grew up in Germany at a time when Wagner was heavily racist, when Adolf Hitler was being born and was growing up, when there was a lot of racism in Germany at that time. And so he brought that over here and instilled that in his son and his grandson. 21 �Toby Jenkins: So, as we come to the close of our interview, is there anything else you want us to talk about that we haven't talked about? Bob Odle: Not that I can think of, except I'm sad that there is only basically one gay bar in Tulsa. It doesn't give us much variety. That's why I like New Orleans. There's a lot of variety down there. A lot of cities have more variety than we have. Although they have gone to publishing a calendar and they have Latin Night, which starts at 10 o'clock on the last Friday. They have Leather Night. They have various nights. So they have opened it to various people. But I don't go there very often because it's boring. Hardly ever do I see anybody my age or anybody I know there, so I don't go. Dennis Neill: So, Bob, why do you think that in the early 80s we had like 19 bars. We're down to a handful. What do you think has caused that demise, even though our city is larger? Bob Odle: Well, I think from what I observe in Tulsa and in other cities, I think part of it is the AIDS crisis. I think there was a diminution of the audience after that. I think the pandemic that hit in 2020 is part of it. And I think also we're at an age when I think this is wonderful in a way, but in a way I think it's depressing. Young gay people can go to any bar, hold hands, kiss, hug, whatever, and nobody really cares. I see this in New Orleans a lot. I saw Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, which is where Lafitte's in Exile first started, except they've dropped the exile now. Until the owner of the building found out they were gay and they already moved them out and then they moved into a bigger place down the street. But I've seen people holding hands. I've seen, obviously, gay couples in there and in other bars here in Tulsa and in other places. And I think it's the acceptance of gay couples everywhere, in addition to those other things, but I think it's just an evolution. And I think it's a wonderful thing. Dennis Neill: You touched on AIDS. Can you talk a little bit more about your personal experience in the theatre, in the theatrical community, the impact both locally and anything you know. I am thinking about John Thomeyer who was so active and passed from AIDS. What has been your personal experience with AIDS? Bob Odle: Well, an actor who toured with Gaslight, who we then hired as part of our full-time staff, eventually quit and moved to New York. And there he began to exhibit all these different, you know, symptoms and died a number of years ago. A good friend who was in some of our first shows, our first season, moved to New York. He got cancer, some sort of colorectal thing, and he retired and he moved back to Tulsa. He eventually died, but essentially it was AIDS, you know, HIV. And then another friend who died in New York, he was from Tulsa, graduated from Will Rogers, was a student there when I did my student teaching at Will Rogers. And he did some shows with us early on, but then he moved to New York and he eventually died, I believe, of AIDS. And so I've known people who've died. I haven't known of anyone, oh, there's somebody, I can't think who it was, but there's somebody I do know who died….I didn't know him very well, but he died of AIDS. And I'm aware of numerous people who've died of AIDS, HIV. 22 �Dennis Neill: And were you ever involved in the 80s and 90s with some of the support groups around here or AIDS response within the Tulsa community? Bob Odle: I went to one meeting at Nancy McDonald's house of PFLAG, but I just didn't have time to get involved with that. And I was involved with you and three or four other people in reorganizing TOHR. That was in the 80s. But I really didn't have time because I was still doing theater at the time, and I was out of town doing tours and things, and I really didn't have time to get involved. And that's the thing about doing theater now, because I'm so involved in some of these social and political things. I hate to give up, because I gave those things up when I was doing theater, because almost every night I had to work. Now I hate to, I can't give up the political and social things I'm involved in. It's that time of my life for me. Toby Jenkins: So as we kind of come to the close, and just give you a minute to think about this, is there anything you would want to say to anybody who comes after us, or younger people today who will see this interview? Is there anything you would like to say, like, this is my message to you for the future? Bob Odle: Things will get better. I saw a person who has a shop on Greenwood talking about, he's an older person, talking about younger black people, thinking, why are you so bitter about stuff? Well, they had, young black people are enjoying the fruits of their labor. Young gay people are enjoying the fruits of our labor. But our labor shouldn't stop. It can't stop. Because we have seen from the past year that they can go back, these things can go backwards. Toby Jenkins: So don't stop. Bob Odle: No, we have to keep fighting for our rights. It was Hubert Humphrey who said, freedom has to be won every day. Toby Jenkins: Very good. Okay, if you'll give us your name one more time, and today's date. Bob Odle: Bob Odle, February 19th, 2026. Toby Jenkins: Thank you so much for your time with us today. Bob Odle: Well, thank you. Toby Jenkins: Thank you, Bob. Addendum: 23 �Robert "Bob" Odle dressed for the role of "Rev. Dr. Oral Love" for a production of "Joyce Martel," produced by the American Theatre Company of Tulsa, OK. The company performed this production at various venues from 1975 to 1985, some of which include the following: Cain's Ballroom, The Inferno, The Captain's Cabin, Mayo Hotel, and the Brook Theatre. The image shows Odle dressed in a church minister's robe while clutching a one dollar bill. Phot courtesy of the Museum of Tulsa History. 24 �Depicting five theater actors dressed as "Martels" in the finale of the production "Joyce Martel: They Say It's Your Birthday," produced in 1985 by the American Theatre Company at the Brook Theatre in Tulsa, OK. The actors and actress are as follows (left to right): Robert "Bob" Odle, Karl Krause, Melanie Fry (in the role of Joyce Martel), Greg Roach, and Tony Gates (kneeling). Photo courtesy of the Museum of Tulsa History. 25 � https://history.okeq.org/files/original/92b7672f465b31469e90f256836e0487.mp4 4594a2c03a0488471c94cd800d12db1f 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 Robert (Bob) Odle Oral History Interview - Feb. 19, 2026 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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] Robert Odle Interview Subject The topic of the resource Robert (Bob) Odle Oral History Project Interview from February 19, 2026 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robert Odle, Toby Jenkins, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 19, 2026 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Toby Jenkins on February 19, 2026. Bob was born on May 15, 1945, in Kansas City, Missouri. His mom and stepdad moved to Tulsa when Bob was in the sixth grade. He graduated from Nathan Hale High School in 1963 and finished his theatre degree from the University of Tulsa in 1967. He was required to go to Oklahoma City for a possible induction into the military as this was the height of the Vietnam War. After two interviews, it was clear that Bob was gay and not subject to military service due to the ban at that time on homosexuals in the military. He began a teaching career in competitive speech and drama at Central High School in Tulsa. He discussed his early involvement in theatre with Gaslight Theatre and the American Theatre Company with its early satirical takes on Tulsa, Oral Roberts University and co-wrote ATC’s production of “A Christmas Carol,” which continues to be performed each December for some 50 years. Bob created the Brother Oral Love role that became a fixture of ATC’s shows along with the Oral Action Singers. Bob has stayed politically active, often writes reviews of plays and musicals and serves in other volunteer roles in the Tulsa community. 2026 A Christmas Carol American Theatre Company American Theatre Company (ATC) American Theatre Productions ATC ATC productions Bob Odle Brother Oral Love Central High School Gaslight Theatre interview military inclusion Nathan Hale High School OKEQ Oral History Project Oral Action Singers oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Oral Roberts University Robert (Bob) Odle Robert Odle Toby Jenkins transcript TU Tulsa Central High School University of Tulsa video https://history.okeq.org/files/original/d9c8a6149f14a01008d49c6d3f611a9e.pdf b4ccfe0cef6ae75fb4be9ca4125dc32d PDF Text Text Oklahomans for Equality Oral History Interview with John Orsulak and Pat Hobbs Interview Conducted by Toby Jenkins (and Dennis Neill) Date: March 19, 2026 Edited By: Dennis Neill using Riverside Studio AI, March 21th, 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 John Orsulak and Pat Hobbs Summary This interview with Pat Hobbs and John Orsulak explores their 36-year relationship, their careers in theater, music, and education, and their activism within the LGBTQ community in Tulsa. They share personal stories, insights on community involvement, and their vision for a more inclusive future. Keywords LGBTQ, Tulsa, theater, activism, community, aging in place, Rainbow Room, cohousing, Pride, advocacy Key Topics  Personal stories of Pat Hobbs and John Orsulak  Their careers in theater, music, and education  Involvement in LGBTQ advocacy and community building  The vision for the Rainbow Room and co-housing in Tulsa Chapters 00:00 Introduction to the Oklahoma LGBTQ History Archives 02:59 Love Story: Pat and John's Journey Together 05:49 Childhood and Early Influences 08:57 Navigating Identity and Sexual Orientation 12:00 The Impact of AIDS on Personal Lives 14:58 Career Paths and Community Involvement 17:49 Theater and Music: A Shared Passion 2 �20:53 Family Dynamics and Acceptance 23:58 Reflections on Life and Legacy 39:31 Theater Memories and Personal Triumphs 42:08 Integrity in Arts Organizations 43:27 Reflections on the Catholic Church and Leadership 45:22 The Journey of Finale's Restaurant 52:40 Y2K and the Impact on Business 54:50 Gardening and Community Living 56:28 The Vision Behind Heartwood Commons 01:01:32 The Role of the Rainbow Room in Tulsa 01:09:42 Theater Community Health and Future 01:14:38 Being a Face of the LGBTQ+ Community 01:18:39 Messages for Future Generations John Orsulak and Pat Hobbs Oral History Interview March 19, 2026 Toby Jenkins: Today is March 19th, 2026. We are at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center in the Joe and Nancy McDonald Rainbow Library interviewing today two wonderful people for our Oklahoma LGBTQ History Archives. Present in the room is Dennis Neill, founder of Oklahomans for Equality. Amanda Thompson, our archivist, and Toby Jenkins. Could you tell us your names? Pat Hobbs: I'm Pat Hobbs. John Orsulak: I'm John Orsulak. Toby Jenkins: And just to kick this off, how long have you been together? Pat and John: 36 years. Toby Jenkins: Now, we're interviewing this couple together and then we're going to find out a little bit about their lives. But I think for our purposes today, I'd like to start out with this question, because I know Oprah would ask. How did y'all meet? Pat Hobbs: Oh, Lord. In church. John Orsulak: Well, church rectory. At the time, I was a church music director at a small Catholic church in Bay City, Michigan, birthplace of Madonna. And the staff was invited over to the rectory for Thanksgiving. And the pastor I worked for was gay. Not that that makes any difference. But anyway, he had the staff over. Pat was visiting a mutual friend of ours who happened to be living there at the time. And Pat 3 �came into the kitchen and we started talking about theater. My ex at the time also showed up at the time, and he'd had a few. But we just hit it off and then... go ahead. Pat Hobbs: Well, we hit it off and he invited me to breakfast on Monday before I left town. And we started a long-distance conversation for about a month. And we met for the next time in Chicago for New Year's Eve. And I spent New Year's in Chicago. John Orsulak: I came down for Valentine's. Pat Hobbs: He came down in February to meet Tulsa. It was his Tulsa debut at Jerry Jackson's and Jeff Feist House for a big party. And then it just evolved. John Orsulak: You came in April. Pat Hobbs: I came in April, went back up there. And it was just kind of a decision. Who's got the better job? He was in music and he can do that anywhere. And I had a really good job here at the time. So we just decided to move here. And John moved down July 4th weekend. Toby Jenkins: And what year would that have been? Pat Hobbs: That was 1990. John Orsulak: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: All right. Well, let's find out how you two people became smitten with each other. What led to that moment? Pat, tell us about your childhood and your family. Pat Hobbs: Well, I'm the second of four boys growing up in Southeast Texas. My dad was a lieutenant colonel in the Marines. So we were his four Marine Corps boys. My baby brother was gay. He was five years younger than me. But we didn't realize that until 1990. So I grew up in Beaumont, Texas and spent time at the farm up in Newton County. And just considered myself kind of a country boy at some point. Toby Jenkins: So where did you go to high school? Pat Hobbs: Went to high school in Beaumont, Texas. Toby Jenkins: Beaumont, Texas. And what year did you graduate? Pat Hobbs: 1970. Toby Jenkins: So it's 1970. What was the world like in 1970, your world? Pat Hobbs: Oh, it was hippie time and it was protest time. Protesting the Vietnam War. Nixon was president. A lot of politics going on. But the draft was going on too. And sending kids overseas to fight in a war that we didn't, many of us didn't believe in. Luckily, I had a very high draft number and I didn't go. Toby Jenkins: So you never did get called up? Pat Hobbs: Never got called up. Toby Jenkins: What were your interests in school? 4 �Pat Hobbs: All my interests in high school were band and theater. And when I was in high school, I went with a friend to help him audition. They convinced me to audition and I got the lead. And it was the first thing I'd ever done. So it was one of those real quick things that, oh, this is fun. Toby Jenkins And what was the production? Pat Hobbs: It was a play called See How They Run. Toby Jenkins: Okay, it wasn't a musical. Pat Hobbs: No, we didn't do musicals in high school because the drama department did not speak to the choir department. They were at the same period, so we never did a musical. But I always loved them. Toby Jenkins: So that piqued your interest in performance. Were you in the band? Pat Hobbs: I was in the band, marching band. I played tuba. Toby Jenkins: Tuba. Pat Hobbs: I played tuba in the marching band. Toby Jenkins: And it probably was bigger than you were. Pat Hobbs: It was bigger than me, but you know, I placed first my junior and senior year. I placed first in competition. Toby Jenkins: In tuba. In Texas. Pat Hobbs: Yes. Toby Jenkins: Well, of course you did. You've always been an overachiever. Pat Hobbs: And then I actually won a state award my senior year. I was the first from our high school since 1952 to win a state UIL, University Interscholastic League award for boys' prose reading. And my winning selection was James Thurber's Unicorn in the Garden. Toby Jenkins: Wow, How appropriate. Okay. So this was 1970. Do you happen to remember how many were in your graduating class from Beaumont? Pat Hobbs: 289. Toby Jenkins: Okay, so it was a mid-sized Texas town. Did you go to college after that? Technical school? Pat Hobbs: I went to SMU the following fall and spent four years at. Toby Jenkins: And SMU is? Pat Hobbs: Southern Methodist University. I was a theater major my first year. And it was just a weird time for me because I thought there were a bunch of weirdos in the theater department. I wasn't out, but there were just a lot of weirdos. I mean, gay people. You know, what I thought were gay people. And I ended up transferring over to the business school and got a degree in accounting and finance but kept my love 5 �for theater and performing. And I would do all-school talent shows when it didn't involve the theater. Toby Jenkins: At SMU? Pat Hobbs: Uh-huh, when it didn't involve the theater department, yeah. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Did you, by then, you're a college student. Did you, how do you identify? What is your sexual orientation? Pat Hobbs: At college? Toby Jenkins: Well, now. Pat Hobbs: Oh, now I'm gay. Toby Jenkins: Okay, what about at college? Pat Hobbs: I was straight, struggling. Toby Jenkins: Okay, but you had that sexual attraction to persons of the same sex. Pat Hobbs: I did, but, you know, it took a long time to get to the point, to actual coming out. Toby Jenkins: So you got a accounting degree from SMU. Pat Hobbs: I did. Toby Jenkins: And what happened after that? Pat Hobbs: You know, I had a job there in Dallas, and then I was dating a young woman, and she had a family business here in Tulsa. Their accountant retired, so they asked me if I would come to work for them here in Tulsa, so that's how I got to Tulsa. Toby Jenkins: And what year was that? Pat Hobbs: I worked for them, that was in 76, and worked for them until 1987. Toby Jenkins: Now, were you married? Pat Hobbs: Yes. Toby Jenkins: And how long were you married? Pat Hobbs: 11 years. Toby Jenkins: 11 years. Any children? Pat Hobbs: No children. Toby Jenkins: Okay. And during that 11 years, were there any kind of struggles over that? Did you have a sense of insecurity in your sexuality, or were you comfortable in that relationship? 6 �Pat Hobbs: I was very comfortable in it until the last couple of years, and there was this desire to see what's out there, you know? Toby Jenkins: Okay. John, tell us about your childhood. John Orsulak: Oh, gosh. Born in 1954. I'm the youngest of six. I have three brothers, two sisters, and also a stepsister, which was later, after I was an adult. Used to be, I think, current count on nieces and nephews is 13, though I do have some grand, or great, whatever it is, nieces and nephews now, and I think I'm even now getting to the great, great stage, which is weird. Lived in Danville, Illinois, hometown of Dick Van Dyke, Donald O'Connor, Gene Hackman, Bobby Short, and myself. It's mid-size at the time, blue-collar, Hyster, a lot of GM plants and things, they're all shuttered now and the town is kind of drying up sort of. I graduated in 72 from Danville High School, was involved in choir, got involved in junior high and then that transferred into high school. My high school choral teacher, Helen Wolfe, was instrumental in getting me into the drama department or a drama club and I don't, I'm trying to think, I was more behind the scenes than on stage at the time and ended up for some weird quirk the president of the club my senior year. While I was in choir, the music department held their very first two musicals while I was there. My junior year it was Brigadoon. I have a picture that was in the yearbook of me within my kilt with a hand up and it looks very gay, as far as the skirt a little hiked up on the leg. And then the second, the senior year was Little Abner and I was just, I think I was the milkman. But that was really the last theater I did for many years. I went to Danville Junior College to, now it's Community College, and got my degree there. That was the era of Streakers, had my first experience with people streaking down the quad, that was interesting. And then went, transferred to Illinois State University and got my degree in elementary ed. Toby Jenkins: And where was that? John Orsulak: Normal, Illinois. Bloomington Normal, where State Farm is located, their headquarters. Didn't do any theater, got very active with the Newman Club there, was involved in all kind of things. Toby Jenkins: So you were Roman Catholic. John Orsulak: Right, right. Toby Jenkins: Did you, you talked about theater, when did you become a musician? When did you become... John Orsulak: Oh gosh, I did that back as a kid. My grade school that I went to, St. Joseph's, which is no longer in existence, long time. They had a small pipe organ they needed somebody to play. I was, had taken piano and just kind of self-taught myself and would play for services. And then that just kind of evolved over time. I really didn't do anything that I recall in college. When I got out, I had my degree, I worked for the Catholic school. Our parish merged with another one, because that was the time small parishes had to do that. And so I taught at what was then, used to 7 �be St. Patrick's, now is Holy Family. I don't even think it's in existence now. Catholic school was seventh and eighth grade, language arts to start with, was doing no theater at all. Still would do the church music. For me as a kid, it was an escape at recess to go over and practice, just so I didn't have to deal with sports and bullying or anything else on the playground. But a friend of mine who had got her degree in theater at Illinois State, talked me into auditioning for a production, local theater production of Annie Get Your Gun. And so did that, chorus, and then from that point on, I basically got hooked, because the next show I got a featured role, Mr. Snow in Brigadoon, not Brigadoon, [ Pat added Carousel] yeah, that one. Thank you. And then just kind of off and on things there, I decided to get out of education, because I was drawn more toward church music, and went back to the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana to get my undergrad work in music. Had to audition for voice, so I had to take voice as part of it. And when I walked into the audition studio, here is William Warfield. Old Man River himself, sitting there, and I'm singing, you know, I'm in my probably mid-20s by then, and it was, you know, I don't recall anything. It was just kind of a blur. It was just seeing him but did that and then continued working and doing church work, moved to a small parish in Decatur, Illinois, if you know where that is. Was there a year, got fired, didn't work. I was a little too progressive for them because at the Newman Center, it was a very progressive Newman Center, and I mean the priests didn't wear a collar, the the woman who was religious, you know, didn't wear a habit. It was very laid-back, very contemporary. Toby Jenkins: Lots of folk music. John Orsulak: Yes, sang a lot of Godspell, things like that. But I did that and then went back from there, came back to my home parish in Danville, worked there for a while, and then went to Bloomington, which was the sister city of where I went to college, Bloomington Normal. Worked at the church there for a year. It didn't work out, though I did get a chance to participate in the renovation of the church, which was, that was a big deal. It was an old Art Deco style, but then they really stripped a lot out and got it. I don't know what it looks like now. Toby Jenkins: So was your career, just like Pat’s was accounting, was your career in church music? John Orsulak: I thought it was going to be. I did it for, I taught for five years and then went into church music full-time and then when I moved here, that's what I thought I was going to do and continue. And at the time there was only, I think, one parish that had any kind of an opening and just didn't feel, just moving here and experiencing their version of Catholic liturgy, they were so far behind. About ten, I was spoiled with a very progressive bishop and again, he was one that you taught, you called him Ken, you didn't call him Bishop, and it was just very laid-back. During that time when I was in Michigan, it's when I had my first relationship with a man and just kind of then met him [Pat] and the rest was history. Toby Jenkins: So during that time how did you identify and what is your sexual orientation? 8 �John Orsulak: Now I'm definitely gay. Back then it was, I think I'm straight. It didn't really feel right. It was, you know, there was a little experimentation here and there and I had one person at a rehearsal, no, it was a cast party after a show, who pursued me home and I was scared to death. I mean, I went to the garage, turned off the lights, got in the house as quickly as I could, turned off the lights and, you know, now I converse with him occasionally through Facebook and that's, you know, and there's no issue with that at all, but yeah, it was church music for a long time when I moved here and there wasn't anything available. I just went back to what I knew, which was education. So I got back to doing subbing in different school districts. I became popular, so to speak, in Jenks because they got to know me well. They liked me and I was offered a position to open the southeast campus when it first opened and from that point on I worked for Jenks over 20 years, fifth grade mainly. Toby Jenkins: Did Jenks school, did they know you were gay? John Orsulak: I wasn't out, but people knew. They knew and parents figured it out. I think a lot of parents did. The biggest controversy, occasionally he would be with me and I just would sidestep it, but... Pat Hobbs: May I interject here? John Orsulak: Go ahead. Pat Hobbs: So if any of you know about the Malcolm Baldrige Award, it's a highly prestigious award given by the Department of Transportation, no, Department of Commerce. Three or four companies a year win this award. Jenks schools won it. Mesa Products won it three times, twice when I was with them, so we called ourselves the Baldrige Boys. Well, when they made the presentation at the Hyatt, or the Marriott, it's now the Marriott down there, they had a nice little presentation thing at 7 o'clock one night, and I was late getting there, John was sitting at a big table of eight with his principal, and they left the chair open for me to come in next to the principal, and I came in and I sat down, and the principal did this, he actually moved his chair two feet away when I sat next to him. John Orsulak Yeah, that was uncomfortable, to say the least. Pat Hobbs: It was very uncomfortable. Toby Jenkins: And that was what year? John Orsulak: That was, oh gosh, that was... Toward the end. 2 Pat Hobbs: 2011, 20... I was at Mesa seven years, 2010, 2011. Toby Jenkins: So towards the end of your career in teaching at Jenks, did you see the culture change where administration and maybe other teachers were more supportive? John Orsulak: It was never an issue. People met Pat, they were comfortable with him. My co-workers, we never discussed it, but they were fine with him, they had no issues. About the only thing that really was controversial with me was for my 40th, I 9 �decided to pierce my ear. I had just done a production of Annie here locally, had done the whole bald head thing, and I was growing it back. And so I had just a poster, a hoop in. Well, there were parents that were just aghast, and they tried to get me to either, I don't know if they were trying to get rid of the earring or get rid of me, and one of the assistant superintendents, who I knew well and they knew me well, supported me and told them no. And from that point on, it was not... Pat Hobbs: But you even had the support of the superintendent, Kirby Lehman, back then. You know how they do prom pictures in Woodward Park? Every Friday and Saturday night during the spring, you can't find a place to park because all the kids are taking prom pictures. Well, living across the street from the park, our driveway was a turnaround, and we saw Dr. Lehman down the street. He became a really good friend of ours through some work with Theater Tulsa, and he came over and had a glass of wine with us. You know, it was our home, you know, come in while you're getting your pictures made, you know. John Orsulak: What do you do? Do you invite him in? Pat Hobbs: Yeah, invite him in and have a glass of wine. John Orsulak: And that was the year, had a young man drive up in a vintage Mustang with his girlfriend for pictures. And we're out there with a cocktail in hand, gawking at how people are dressed, like we normally did. And this kid looks over to me and says, hi, Mr. O, and he told me his name, and I immediately knew it was a former student of mine, but it was not, it was no big deal. And here are the two of us, I was like, okay, he's figured that out. But, yeah, it's... Toby Jenkins: Yeah, so your house faced Woodward Park. What was the street there? John and Pat: Rockford. Toby Jenkins: Rockford. So, well, you talked a little bit about your career and how you ended up in Tulsa. Did you want to talk any more about what your other interests, like how you got into the theater community here, or, I know you had that day job as an accountant. Pat Hobbs: Oh, yeah, but that was just a day job, you know, it paid the bills. Since 19... I had moved here in 76 and auditioned for a show in 77 for Theater Tulsa and did shows for them ever since. Did shows for all the theater companies here in town just about once, two, three, four times a year, you know, kept it up. Toby Jenkins: I know that you developed a character who became kind of wellknown, kind of a comedian musical character, you want to tell us about that? Pat Hobbs: Danny Day? Danny Day is almost a, oh, I don't know what to call it now…autobiographical story. He started in theater when he was five, playing Tiny Tim. And he was 55, the last time he was on stage he was 55, 60 years old. And he had done all the shows. He had done all the musicals in town. Sometimes two or three times. Sometimes this part. Sometimes he had a lead. Sometimes he had a supporting role. But he knew all the gossip. He knew all the scoop about what was 10 �going on in town. And he knew where the bodies were buried. He knew who slept with whom, and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, it was a little character I made up. But it was very autobiographical at the same time. Toby Jenkins: It was very popular. You did it several times. Pat Hobbs: I did, yeah. Toby Jenkins: So you came to Tulsa, what year was it? Pat Hobbs: 76. Toby Jenkins: And I know you were married, and then you divorced. You were in Tulsa, this was, let's talk about before, and then John would have been still in Illinois, correct, during that period. You're men who are figuring yourselves out. Tell me about the first time you heard about AIDS. John Orsulak: Oh gosh. Pat Hobbs: Probably on TV. Probably? John Orsulak: Yeah, I really can't think of a date or a year either. Pat Hobbs: Early to mid 80s. 83, 84, 85. Toby Jenkins: Did you see the impact of that on maybe people that associated with the churches you were working for? Did you see an impact on friends, family? John Orsulak: I didn't really until I moved here. And got involved with the center. Pat Hobbs: And the Names Project. John Orsulak: Yeah, and then Billy. Pat Hobbs: And then my brother. Toby Jenkins: Okay, tell us about that. Pat Hobbs: Billy's five years younger than me. He was born in 1957. And it's a really lovely story, but he came out to me and John. We were all in New York one weekend for New Year's, and he came out to us at the dinner table one night, and we had no idea. I mean, just absolutely no idea. And we had this wonderful relationship for about three or four years. We'd go down to Houston where he lived. He'd come up here to Tulsa. We just had a really grand old gay time. He even had a parking place at J.R.'s, a private parking place at J.R.'s in Houston. He was so popular. But it was right after mother died, and we were, in fact, it was the day after, the afternoon after her funeral, and the four of us boys were sitting on the front porch. You know, it was, the will was cut and dried. We all knew what was gonna go on. And we were talking about the farm, what we were gonna do with the farm. And we're sitting there in our rocking chairs, just rocking back and forth like this. And he stands up and had a cigarette going, and he threw the cigarette out in the yard, and he said, it doesn't make any goddamn difference to me. I'm dying of the 11 �fucking AIDS. And he got up and he walked off in the woods. And about a month later, I got a call from a friend of his in Houston. And he said, I think you need to come down one weekend. You know, come down, see what's going on. So from that point on, John and I, we either drove down or we flew down every other weekend for a year to make sure he had food in the house, care in the house, a clean house, do all the things that we could do from a distance. John Orsulak: And it was right before the cocktail. Pat Hobbs: And it was right before, right before. Toby Jenkins: So it was 1995. Explain the cocktail. Pat Hobbs: 1995. John Orsulak: Gosh, originally it was just ATZ. Then other drugs, combinations came about that helped prolong life. And for Billy, it was just, he was too far gone. Pat Hobbs: Six months, six months. John Orsulak: Luckily he had good hospice care toward the end. Pat Hobbs: We had, yeah, very good hospice care. Toby Jenkins: This would have been what year? Pat Hobbs: 95. Toby Jenkins: And he would have been how old, Pat? Pat Hobbs: 37. Toby Jenkins: 37, yeah. Dennis Neill: Pat, how did your other brothers deal with it? Pat Hobbs: I'm just gonna say that my other brother between the two of us, what do we tell people he died off. That's as much as I'm going to say. But we found a hospice in Houston, Omega House, and it was just like, similar to St. Joseph's here in Tulsa, where the designers had taken a room and designed a room. And it was small, it was there in the Montrose area of Houston. And that's where he spent the last six or eight weeks of his life. And if you recall the pictures you saw on television of people in their last stages, the wasting syndrome, the weight loss, that's what Billy was. His wasn't a, I'm not going to say it wasn't a dignified death. Physically it was not a dignified death. What we did going down there was make sure that he died a dignified death by having food and help and making sure his will was properly prepared before he died. But his was one of the worst, wasting, devastating deaths. John Orsulak: But your nieces were very supportive. Pat Hobbs: They were very supportive. And they were very young, too. Toby Jenkins: Now, you told us that your brother, you and John, had already been together. Had you come out to your family as gay? 12 �Pat Hobbs: You know, I... John Orsulak: First time I met the family was at his father's funeral. Pat Hobbs: At my father's funeral. And, you know, John drove down to Texas and we buried Daddy. And from then on, it was, he was fixing mommy drinks at five o'clock every afternoon. I didn't have to say anything. You know, it was just... Toby Jenkins: So his mother met you. John Orsulak: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Pat Hobbs: And mother's uncle was gay. He had two long-term relationships, Uncle Fred, that we grew up with. So it wasn't a surprise to her. You know, she never said anything. I never said, hey, mom. You know, but he was always there at the house. John Orsulak: Tell the story of when I was moving. When we stopped in Danville. Pat Hobbs: Oh, oh, yeah. This is his dad. So we were moving down from Michigan. And we had a U-Haul van filled with his stuff and had the car towed behind. And we stopped at his folks' house in Danville to spend the night. And it was a tiny little house, and a tiny little bedroom that we were in with a tiny little almost twin bed that we shared. And we got up the next morning and had breakfast and getting ready to move on. And his dad takes me aside. His dad says, take care of my son. John Orsulak: No more words. Pat Hobbs: Take care of my son. John Orsulak: Yeah, it was never discussed. It was just a given. Yeah. Pat Hobbs: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Still welcomed by your family. John and Pat: Oh, very much. John Orsulak: When I come home, where's Pat? Toby Jenkins: Okay. Well, you're fortunate. I think you know that. But you're fortunate that you found each other. And you're fortunate that your families maintain the relationship. Tell us a little bit about some of your, I mean, you both had careers. But tell us a little bit about some of the things that you began to get involved in here in Tulsa. All of the organizations and the things that were passionate to you and the projects. Pat Hobbs: Oh, geez. How can you, you know, over the years, how many boards did I serve on? Including this one, twice. You know, of course, the arts have always been a passion of mine. And I've served on the AHHA board. I was on staff at Mayfest for a while. The Tulsa Garden Center. Anything creative and artistic, I was either on the board or on staff at some point, volunteer staff. And then got involved here at OkEq back in 2001 or 2002, when Brent Ortolani was president. And the previous president was Michelle. Help me out. She's in Kansas now. [Michelle Hoffman.] 13 �Anyway, because of my accounting background, they asked me if I would be treasurer. And this was when the center was located at 21st and Memorial. And I would go down and do the books on Sunday mornings while you'd go to church. I'd go down and do the books at this office we had down there that had no heat. I would bundle up in my coat to go down there. We didn't even have, we had, it wasn't even QuickBooks or Quicken, and it was some very, very elementary software program that we had. And it took maybe a couple hours to go in and write checks. And I think our total budget at the time was maybe $19,000. It was just, yeah, very grassroots at the time, if you will. And the smell from the bar next door, from being open on a Saturday night, I'd come home and have to hang my clothes outside on a Sunday afternoon just to get rid of the smoke that was in the office in the afternoon. But yeah, I served as treasurer for a couple of years until some health issues took over. And I had to relinquish those to Dwight [Kealiher]. And Dwight took over until the organization kept growing and growing and growing. We had $21,000 in the bank. This is one of my reports. 2021. Oh, wow. Just when the Pyramid Project was in its infancy. Toby Jenkins: So John, he said, so were you still playing, doing music for a congregation here at the time? John Orsulak: Not at first. I did do a little bit with one congregation. It didn't last long. Pat Hobbs: You did St. John's for a while. John Orsulak: Right. I was there at Jerome's, but it didn't last terribly long. Toby Jenkins: I think there were some, I don't remember what the reason was, but it just didn't work. Pat Hobbs: Political issues. John Orsulak: Yeah. Yeah. Probably more interpersonal things. But no, I really got back into education. And then because I moved here and we already had the love of theater between us, within a month, I was cast in a show. It wasn't a musical, but started my career with Theater Tulsa and then just kind of branched out into musicals. Toby Jenkins: So when he says he was working on the books and you were at church, are you still active in that? John Orsulak: No. No. Toby Jenkins: Okay. John Orsulak: I haven't been for a long time. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Dennis Neill: Excuse me. John, what was your favorite acting role that you've... 14 �John Orsulak: Oh my gosh. That's a tough one. Probably the one that I'm proudest of, it was probably the hardest role I had to do was Juan Peron in Evita. Not only did I have to dye my hair, because it's very gray, the best they could do was a dark brown, but musically it was some of the toughest stuff I ever had to learn. And I'd have to drill and drill and drill because it was very atonal, but it was this critical speech I do on a balcony and just getting through that was a triumph for me because it was a challenge. Otherwise, things came fairly easy, so it was nice to get a challenge that would push you a little bit more. Now, we've kind of aged out. Roles are few and far between. Dennis Neill: So with that Evita role, that was not that long ago, right? John Orsulak: What would you say? 10, 15? Pat Hobbs: It was probably 10 years ago. Dennis Neill: Oh, it was that long ago? Pat Hobbs: Yeah. John Orsulak: Yeah. Dennis Neill: And then Pat, how about you? Your favorite role and then also your favorite board position? All the non-profits you've served on. Pat Hobbs: Oh, my favorite role by far is Zaza, the Drag Queen in La Cage. Dennis Neill: And you did that as Tulsa... Pat Hobbs: Tulsa Project Theater, and it was an equity show, I got equity points. I'm equity eligible for that show. Dennis Neill: And how much did you get paid? Pat Hobbs: Oh, it was a hundred dollars. But the story I like to tell about that is that the end of Act I is when Albin is out there, or Zaza is in her full sequins and feathers and everything, dismisses the entire cast and sings the gay anthem, I Am What I Am, and it closes Act I. And I had the privilege of singing with an 18-piece Tulsa Symphony Orchestra in that show. It's Jerry Herman. It's horns. It's a beautiful orchestration. But here I am on stage by myself for the last five minutes singing this wonderful, wonderful song. And I realized on, it was dress rehearsal, when you're just totally in that role and you're totally singing, and you finish that last number, and you rip that wig off, and the curtain comes down, and there's nobody around you. You've just done the performance of your life, and there is, the cast has gone upstairs to change clothes for Act II. The only person on your left over here is the stage manager who calls curtain. There's nobody else on stage, nobody to catch it. And it's like, so after that happened on dress rehearsal, I asked my co-star Chris, who was my husband in the show, I said, would you please stand offstage on stage right and just hold me when I come off? Because you just exposed every nerve and every emotion in your body singing this wonderful gay anthem. And I just needed 15 �somebody to hold me, you know? So from there on, for every performance, Chris was there to catch me. But I love that. That was my... Dennis Neill: I loved the show. Pat Hobbs: I would love to do that again, too. Favorite board position. Oh, geez. You know, Dennis, my integrity, my professional accounting integrity, has gotten the best of me sometimes, being a board member. And specifically with a couple of arts organizations here in town who were doing the wrong thing and blowing through Harwelden money like they were going to get it next year, you know, get the same amount next year. And they kept blowing through it and they didn't have their policies and procedures in place. I'm not going to say I have the best organization I stayed on, okay, that I served on. But there were some fun moments for all of them. But all of my integrity got to me on a couple of them, really, and just had to walk away. Toby Jenkins: I wanted to ask this. We were... I was going to ask you about... You had worked for these churches and apparently still were connected, so you're no longer involved with the Catholic Church. As a former Catholic, I guess is the way I'd... What do you think about our present Pope? John Orsulak: Hopeful. The previous Pope, I liked him a lot, just he was on the right track. I don't know. I don't still... I'm waiting to see how he deals with people who are gay. The number of people who work for the church who are gay is... I think if people realized that, they'd be astounded. I worked for two gay pastors, very obviously, an assistant. And it's like, okay. Here locally, you just kind of wonder. I see a lot of cassocks and old school looks, and it's like, okay, what are you hiding from? Just not of interest to me anymore. I don't want to play the game. Toby Jenkins: It's still pretty profound though, that the world's number one religious leader for all of Christianity, whether they acknowledge him as their spiritual head, it's pretty significant that the last three or four years we've had a Pope who called us to treat people with dignity regardless of their journey. John Orsulak: John, the current one, he's from Illinois, my home state, and he's a Cubs fan, so you can't beat that. Good combination. Toby Jenkins: He's pretty critical of the United States' present positions on multiple issues, calls us out. Pat and John: Yeah. Toby Jenkins: Okay, I just was curious about that. Now, let me ask you about this. Tell us about Finales. Pat Hobbs: Lord, really? John Orsulak: I need a drink. Pat Hobbs: That was the most expensive MBA anyone has ever gone through. Toby Jenkins: Okay. Pat Hobbs: I think we were kind of like Joseph in The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in that we were years ahead of our time, just ahead of our time. We 16 �found a space down here on First Street, and it was my dream to have a restaurant with entertainment, like Lucy and Desi, come down to the club. So we remodeled the first floor of the Jacobs Building down here on First Street and hired James Schrader as our chef, who ended up doing a dang good job of it. We hired people like you. We didn't know what we were doing, but we had fun at it at the same time. We had cast parties for opening night for several of the touring companies that would come in. The opening night cast party for Chicago was our biggest night that we ever had. My God, it was a fabulous evening. Beauty and the Beast, we had their cast party. And for all the local companies here in Tulsa, we have opening night cast parties, a place for people to go. Now they go to Kilkenny's or they go to McNeely's after a show. Toby Jenkins: So your vision was a restaurant with entertainment. Pat Hobbs: With entertainment, and it was before and after the theater. It was within walking distance. It was 476 steps from the Performing Arts Center. So if you're going to the Symphony or the Ballet, come have a nice dinner at 6, walk over to the PAC, come back and have coffee and dessert. Toby Jenkins: And so in those days, downtown was pretty deserted. Pat Hobbs: Oh, downtown. Toby Jenkins: You were it. Pat Hobbs: I think the May Rooms were still open. Toby Jenkins: And then across the railroad tracks was the Spaghetti Warehouse, but that was it. Pat Hobbs: That was it. Toby Jenkins: There were no other restaurants. Pat Hobbs: There was no Art District. Toby Jenkins: No other restaurants. Dennis Neill: And what's the time period? Pat Hobbs: This was 1998. 1998 to 2000. Toby Jenkins: And for our viewers, I was out and I needed a part-time job, and Pat and John, his partner, and his other folks who were there with him, took me under their arm and they taught me how to do fine dining. I didn't know how to, I never drank wine. They had to teach me how to serve it. But it was elegant. Tulsa's power people loved it. Tulsa's people who desired fine dining and entertainment supported it. Pat Hobbs: And we had a 1921 Steinway in the center of the restaurant. John Orsulak: You bought sight unseen. 17 �Pat Hobbs: I bought sight unseen out of California on the internet before they had pictures. John said, this is a drug deal going bad. And they delivered it to our house and I went, oh my God. Toby Jenkins: It was elegant. Pat Hobbs: It was, yeah. Toby Jenkins: But there was nothing in downtown Tulsa. Pat Hobbs: No, there was nothing. Toby Jenkins: Nobody lived in downtown Tulsa. There were no other restaurants. You were definitely pioneers of the revitalization and the restoration of our urban core, which we all take for granted. And younger people today just assume that it's always been like this. Because there was a period when downtown Tulsa was the place to be. And then everything left downtown Tulsa. And you and your colleagues were trying to, you could see it before others couldn't. Pat Hobbs: Well, thank you. Yeah, we just wanted to, the desire was to build it near the Performing Arts, find a place near the Performing Arts Center. And we looked two or three places before then. And the story goes, the name at the time was Finale's Cabaret and Restaurant. That is how we initially, and the word cabaret in Oklahoma in the 1990s did not mean the type of cabaret entertainment you see in New York City. That is musical theater, that's piano, piano bar, cabaret means strip clubs. So we found this place over here on Cincinnati and 2nd, right behind what was then Oklahoma Tire and Supply. It's now the Chinese place. And it was a twostory run-down building and we were gonna buy the building and renovate it. And then the word got over to the Williams Companies that cabaret, that a strip club was gonna open up across the street from the Williams Company's tower. And they came in and bought it out from under us and tore the building down because they didn't want a strip club because cabaret meant strip club. So we hunted for a couple of other places and found this one over on 1st Street, which wasToby Jenkins: And that was an old historical hotel. Pat Hobbs: That was an old historical hotel that was built in 21. Dennis Neill: And who was the landlord? Pat Hobbs: You know, the landlord, the legal landlord that owned the building or the one that... The legal landlord was a guy by the name of Ferretti and he lived in Oklahoma City. And he was this little short Italian guy who drove a big fancy Mercedes. I think he was mob related. But he owned the building and then Mike Sager got involved in it. And Michael Sager was the mouthpiece. And after we vacated the building, Sager had his name put at the top of the building, the Sager, but it's since gone. It's now Jacob, since Jacob's building again. But yeah, Michael Sager was the mouthpiece for Mr. Ferretti. Toby Jenkins: So this was going, and for our viewers, I was a waiter. And that is where I met Mary and Sharon Bishop Baldwin. They were there celebrating their anniversary. I was their waiter. I mean, it was a very, very elegant, impressive place 18 �to be. But I want to bring us to the place of closing night was what was going on in the world, closing night. Pat Hobbs: It was Y2K. You know, we had had, like I said, the night of Chicago was our biggest night. We had a private party in between the dinner hour and the cast party, and it was a big, and something happened in 1999, and the world was predicted to go dark because of the changeover, Y2K, 2000. Everything was gonna go, you're gonna lose your power. Nobody wanted to make New Year's Eve reservations. The year before, we had two turns. We turned that restaurant twice on New Year's Eve. This New Year's Eve, I think we may have had 80 reservations, and that was it. So we ended up catering a dinner for 37 up to the IT people up at Williams. So they, because they were on staff that night because we all knew the lights were gonna go out, and they didn't. Toby Jenkins: Oh yeah, we were afraid planes would fall out of the sky. Your current model cars would just shut down. Your computers would. Pat Hobbs: But you know, we were so hoping. I mean, you know, because restaurants are, you know, your margins are that big in a restaurant. And that was gonna get us through the next few months, you know, what we made off of New Year's Eve, and it just didn't happen. So we just kind of, we turned our own lights out. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, so I want our viewers to know that it was Pat Hobbs' idea to revitalize downtown Tulsa. Pat Hobbs: Oh no. Toby Jenkins: And you know, that, in 1999, he saw the vision, and so the city councilors should name a street after you. Pat Hobbs: And like I said, it was a very expensive MBA. Toby Jenkins: So, you're together, you're in Tulsa, you have your careers, you have your interests. Dennis has already questioned you about your involvement in all the non-profits. During this time, what else has been going on in your life, and what was passionate to you? Pat Hobbs: Gardening, gardening. We loved our yard over on Rockford, designed, initially designed by Dave Collins, did a fantastic job. We even brought cypress trees up from the farm. We had some cypress trees cut and Dave designed a beautiful cypress deck for us. And that was our passion for many, many years was our yard. And John's even a Linnaeus, was Woodward Park Teaching Garden. John Orsulak: Yeah, yeah. Formerly Linnaeus. Pat Hobbs: And still, you still volunteer every Tuesday. John Orsulak: Tuesday, now, yeah. Toby Jenkins: With who? John Orsulak: The Teaching Garden at Woodward Park, formerly Linnaeus, that's a whole story. But, yeah, I do that just to keep my fingers in it, because it's, it was, well, 19 �when we moved from the house, we moved downtown for three years while we were waiting for Heartland Commons to be built. And we really had no place to do, I could still go out and do some things at the garden. He had nothing, and it was driving him nuts. And that's been the one blessing of our current home is we've got a yard that's pretty much nothing was there and gave him a place to play. Dennis Neill: And give us a little more background on your thoughts about forming Heartland Commons, your passion about that, some co-housing with you. John Orsulak: Oh, gosh. Pat Hobbs: Okay, real quick, I'll give you the condensed, real quick condensed version. Performer Melanie Fry, we all know Melanie Fry here in town, been performing for 50 years, just did a production of Love Letters back in, for Valentine's. Melanie thought she and her girlfriends would get together and play water volleyball and drink wine in the summertime. And they thought, well, wouldn't this be a great idea if we all, as we age, all bought homes in the same cul-de-sac, and we can all live together and watch and take care of each other. Well, as they researched that, they found the co-housing website, and co-housing was developed in Denmark back in the 60s. And one thing led to another, they had an introductory meeting, Melanie is no longer involved in the project, she was for a little while, but she got us started along with four other families that started this journey back in 2015, I think. John Orsulak: Sounds about right. Pat Hobbs: It's been about 11 years when the initial conversation got started. But it's all about aging in place, keep going. John Orsulak: Well, it's, it's, you get, you, it's about community and having a support network that you can depend on. The house is secondary, it's nice to have, it's a new build, the, you're, you walk through the community to do what you need to do. If you're going to get mail, it's kind of like a condo place where you do that, however, if somebody's on their front porch, in co-housing, you're considered fair game. And you can be, you can visit and interact. If they're on their back porch, you usually leave them alone. That's a private space, but you're walking to get your mail, which normally would take you what, five, 10 minutes, depending on where you were in the community. For us, and that would turn into a half hour or more because you keep running into people who want to visit, who want to interact In some communities, that means a glass of wine, bottle of beer, sitting on the rail of the porch and just interacting and it's, it makes for a healthier lifestyle for older, for senior co-housing compared to traditional co-housing that is multi-generational. But it just enhances, gives you more opportunity for interaction, stimulation. You've got somebody to depend on if you need a ride, if you're needing an egg. You put it out there, somebody, you'll end up with a dozen eggs just because people want to help you out. Toby Jenkins: Very secure. 20 �Pat Hobbs: Very secure. Pat Hobbs: And you kind of look out for each other. John Orsulak: Right. We're basically our own neighborhood watch. That's evolved. We've been there over a year and we've had a few issues, but we've been working them out and had the Riverside Police, which is just two doors down from us, come over one evening and talk to us about safe practices and what to do and what not to do. And it's good to have those relationships. Toby Jenkins: So it's intentional housing, not just organic where you may know your neighbors and they sell their house and a new person moves in and you may not care for them. These are all people you chose to be around. Pat Hobbs: Everybody's become their best friends now. And it's kind of like family too because you have personalities. And sometimes your personality is buttheads, especially in a, what do I want to say, a homeowner's association meeting. And that happens everywhere. But yeah, we have common meals twice or three times a week. And it's where one of the residents will be responsible for buying the provisions. And we have a commercial kitchen in our common house and they are a team will do this evening meal for six o'clock and do the cleanup and everybody chips in $7 for their meal. And we all got, we had how many first St. Patrick's Day about, 28 or 29 of us and had this St. Patrick's meal with corned beef and hash and cabbage and it's community meal. It's all about community. John Orsulak: Yeah, it's got its pros, it's occasional cons. But overall, it's been a good experience. Toby Jenkins: Let me deviate a little bit from this because I do feel like it was good that we talk about that because there are going to be more of us that are older and we, instead of just letting housing happen, this is you purposely planning, this is what… John Orsulak: Oh, we looked at over 50 properties when we were in the area, north, south, east, downtown. And actually, we rejected the property we're currently in originally but came back to it and we realized this is where we want to be. Pat Hobbs: And it's five acres located at 71st and Riverside in that vicinity and it was an old farm, two and a half acres per lot. So we took the five acres and our community pitched in and we bought the property, we secured the bank loan to do the construction. John Orsulak: We designed it. Pat Hobbs: We had consultants come in and design it. John Orsulak: But we have, the nice thing with co-housing is you have input. You're not dictated like a traditional senior living. Nothing wrong with them, if that's your thing, good. But we set the rules. We have our own, we call them agreements that we've developed so that everybody's on the same page. You're not told what to do. You can do as much as you want. If you want to be active, you can be active. If you 21 �want to stay in your home, you can stay at home. We've got a mahjong group. We've got puzzles and TV and movie nights and it's just kind of like, okay, that floats your boat. You can be there. If not, you can just stay at home and curl up with your dog or cat if you have one. And yeah. Toby Jenkins: So thank you for sharing about this because this is, we've covered kind of a lot of areas. I want to, what a lot of people may know you for is here at the Lynn Riggs Theater in the Rainbow Room. Tell us a bit about your, just like Pat had the vision for the revitalization of downtown Tulsa with his pioneering days, he had a vision of he and John the Rainbow Room. And tell us a little bit about your vision for that in the Lynn Riggs Theater. Pat Hobbs: Well, let's go back to the 13 bullets for $13. That kind of, in my view, it kind of kicked this whole thing off when we had to replace the front windows. And that snowballed into basically an international fundraising campaign. But turning the garage downstairs into a theater. Thanks to David Nelson's help and Dennis's help and everybody else, I mean there were dozens of us on that team that were consulting on this thing. But we opened it in February of 2018. 2018, which was eight years ago. And I thought about it for a while and I thought, you know, let's do something fun with it. And I went over, I made the proposal to you, Toby. I remember going over to your house that afternoon and saying, I'd like to do this. Take it to the board or see what you have to do. And came up with the idea of Third Thursdays in the Rainbow Room. Which would be the third Thursday of every month. We do musical presentations. Now I say musical presentations. Tulsa has a plethora of talent in this town. And when people do their 32nd Chamber of Commerce elevator speech, they always talk about the arts. The philharmonic, the symphony, the ballet, the opera. But they don't really talk about the musical theater company. We have such a talented group of people in this town. And that was my vision, is to get some of these people, when they're not doing a show, to come in and do an hour and a half show. Come in and do a two-hour show. Do your own thing. If you want to do a one man show, do a one man show. If you've got half a dozen people, come in. And they're thematic. And I think one of the neatest things that I ever saw come out of this was a knight of musical theater. K-N-I-G-H-T, a knight of musical theater. And it was all songs from Camelot and Something's Rotten and Spamalot. And it was all songs about knights in musical theater. We've had some wonderful talent come through here though. We only had two presentations in 2020 because of COVID. But we've had over 60, 61, I counted them today. We've had 61 individual presentations as part of the third Thursdays. And now it's just Thursdays in the Rainbow Room because you can't just do the third Thursday. There's so much going on in town that people schedule. You've got to have it listed on a Thursday. But we've had 61 different performers. Janet Rutland, who is one of the most talented singers in Northeast Oklahoma, does her show in the Rainbow Room every two years. The latest one she did is around the Hollywood Campfire with John Wooley. And it has taken off, and she has performed that show all around Oklahoma this last year, but she premiered it here. Travis Guillory did his first drag show here. And it was three years ago, so it was 2023, I think he did his first drag Christmas. And look at him, Travis is now Miss Gay America. 22 �Toby Jenkins: Miss Gay America USA. Pat Hobbs: But we've had some wonderful, wonderful talent through this place. And I think it's exposed the center also. Having this little theater down here has exposed the Tulsa community to what we have. Many people have come in to see their friend perform, not just theater friends, but you know, like Janet, some of Janet's followings. They didn't even know it existed. They didn't know the Equality Center existed. You know, so they come down here and they, with our bar now and our seating, you know, they just, it's just like a little nightclub on a Thursday night. Dennis Neill: And Pat, do you think the opportunity for the performers to pocket a little bit of money, is that kind of a unique opportunity for some of these performers compared to the rest of them? Pat Hobbs: You know, absolutely, when you do musical theater, when you do community theater here in Tulsa, you don't get paid. It costs you two or three, $400 a show with meals and gas and costumes. But here you've got a chance to curate your own show. And the split that we've done with ticket sales is that the performers get 70% of the ticket sales. 30% goes back to the center. And you know, in most cases, that's eight, 900, $1,100 that goes back to the performer, you know, which, I don't know, you know, pays your pianist. It keeps, it's just a little enticement to keep people going, you know? Yeah. Dennis Neill: And knowing how important theater has been for both of you all this time, what do you think is the health of our theater community and where do you see it going in the future? Much like we've seen in other groups, there's a lot of small spinoffs and a lot of new theaters emerging. Are we healthy enough to support these and how do you feel like the direction is going to go for live theater? John Orsulak: That concerns me at this stage. Having moved, when I moved here, summer stage was still going on at the Performing Arts Center and that meant that was the only opportunity to do a musical for most, when Pat was doing Little Shop, or not Little Shop, Best Little Whorehouse when I moved here. And that was it. You had one show, one musical, and there were no touring companies coming around as I recall. A lot of straight plays, comedies, dramas, but if you aren't into that, it gave you no avenue. Now, I fear there have become so many splintered groups and so many organizations now within the community that it's almost spread too thin. They have so many opportunities now where these kids can do multiple shows in a year, multiple musicals in a year. But are there enough audience people to support it? It gets expensive. This past month, I don't know how many shows were going on, and the performers who want to go out and support their friends, they can't afford and they have to pick and choose. Okay, I can go to this show, but I'm gonna have to skip this one, or can I get to an IVR to see a rehearsal? Pat Hobbs: Our budget only allows us to go see so much. We're seeing, this is the third weekend of three weekends since we've been back, and it's like, okay, do we want to go? I want to go see my friends, but you know, yeah, there's a finite audience out there, I think, but they're doing some fantastic stuff. They're just doing some awesome, awesome shows. 23 �John Orsulak: And a lot of the, like Theatre Tulsa, for example, they've had ebbs and flows, the dips. So when I was there, it was an upswing, and then it had a major dip funding-wise, and they struggled, and they almost went under. But they clawed their way back up, and they've been able to, I think, restore, you know, there are always things you're always going to disagree with, as far as philosophy or structure. But, you know, Theatre Tulsa has that studio now, that used to be a dollar store, and it seems to be doing well. Pat Hobbs: It kind of makes me mad that they did that, because we've got this beautiful 100-seat theater here that they can use, but now they're using their own, because it doesn't cost them anything, you know? John Orsulak: But the nice thing with this theater, with Lynn Riggs, is it is small. It's a black box, so you have lots of flexibility on how it's used. You've got people, like Eli, running things, as far as the tech part of it. And it's big enough to do some good, solid productions, but it's small enough to be... Pat Hobbs: And we have done some really neat things here. I mean, when the Lynn Riggs can host the Tulsa Opera in a performance of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, and do the job that they did, it was a beautiful production. And even Chamber Music Tulsa, you know, was booked in here. So, it's taken a few years, but, you know, word's getting out. Toby Jenkins: Well, I may be overreaching, and Dennis can slap me, but that's because of you. You made it happen. He made sure the resources were there, but you sold Tulsa on Lynn Riggs' theater. Dennis Neill: Yeah, you've helped bring Bill and Jason aboard to carry on some interesting... Pat Hobbs: I know, and I'm so, so excited about those two guys who bring just another level of energy, another age, another age group, and the way Bill and Jason have embraced the community, and the way the community have embraced Bill and Jason, to have this new Broadway Clubhouse come out here later this month is just so exciting. I can't wait. Toby Jenkins: Okay, I just want to ask you, I had a situation that...How does it feel to be the face of the gay community as an older couple? How does it feel? And by that I'm talking about the day that you were on the front cover of Life Senior Services. Pat Hobbs: Vintage Magazine. Toby Jenkins: Their very first openly gay married couple in Oklahoma. And how did that feel? And did you get any... I know that's incredible support, but I want to know, have y'all had experience pushback at your life in this time? John Orsulak: No, we've been told some people, what, three times over the years. I'm not saying we're normalized, but we certainly were nothing to be afraid of. And we believe in the community. We're the only gay couple at Heartwood Commons. That doesn't mean we won't have more, but we're accepted, we're not shunned. 24 �Pat Hobbs: I just wish that I had a publicist, because all these things just came about. I mean, there was no rhyme or reason. I don't have an agent. To have all these things happen, you know, Tulsa People three times, and Vintage Magazine, and then there's a couple more. They just happen. They just happen. Toby Jenkins: Yeah, Vintage Magazine goes to 400,000 people. Did you know that? Pat Hobbs: No, I did not. Toby Jenkins: It's one of the largest senior publications in the country. Pat Hobbs: I feel honored. Well, you know how that came about. Toby Jenkins: No, you tell us. Pat Hobbs: My post-retirement gig at the Garden Center, I was keeping their books, and there was a young gentleman that was doing an internship in communications, coordinating website, Facebook, Instagram, and all of this. Actually, Vintage Tulsa called him to find…they wanted a face for their issue, and he had the office right next to him. He says, hey, Pat, you and John want to do this? I said, okay. It didn't even dawn on me that he could have picked another couple. He could have picked a heterosexual couple. He could have picked an individual. But he just leaned over and said, hey, you and John want to do this? They need somebody for the cover of this magazine. Oh, okay. But we never got any derogatory feedback on that. Never got any hate mail. Toby Jenkins: So you may not have gotten hate mail, and you may not have gotten overt rejection or harassment. As a couple, have there been times when you've known if you were welcome in the room or not? I mean, you talked earlier about the crews. Yeah, the Malcolm Baldrige. Pat Hobbs: Well, the Baldrige Award thing, where the principal moved his chair two feet away. You know, at this day and age, not so much anymore. John Orsulak: Yeah, I just say this is my husband, and like it or love it. Pat Hobbs: You know, honest to God, since the legalization back in 2014, that's what we do. We introduce each other as our husbands, not partner, not roommate. I mean, and it's more accepted, isn’t it? John Orsulak: I just say it. Toby Jenkins: Well, that leads us right into kind of the closing of our time together. What would you say, I mean, our situations, we're seeing so much pushback against our community, on public policy. Today, the lead story in Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Tulsa World was state agencies, not state-funded organizations or agencies or colleges or universities or schools, could not acknowledge Pride Month. They couldn't fly a rainbow flag. Pat Hobbs: Well, let me tell you a story about what happened over at the Garden Center a couple of years ago. Dennis, thank you for the flag. May I tell this story? So, you supplied... 25 �Dennis Neill: Tulsa Progress Flags. Pat Hobbs: Tulsa Progress Flags. And it was flown, the Garden Center manager, Lee, flew it over the teaching garden and was instructed that the only time that the flag could be flown was during the month of June and immediately take it down the first of July. You know, half the staff at the garden center at the time identifies as LGBTQ+. And it was a city, it's city property. Take the flag down. Just made me so mad. You know, and this whole thing with the flag, it doesn't make any sense. What have we done differently over the last 20 years? Why now? Why are you offended? Toby Jenkins: So what would be your messages to those who come after us or for young activists? I always like to say it this way. In a hundred years, archaeologists are going to dig through the ruins of this property and they're going to discover that there was a day in America where there had to be LGBT centers and they uncover our archives. So the archaeologists, when they uncover your interview, what would be your message for the future, for those who come after us, and for young LGBTQ people and who identify as queer today? John Orsulak: Gosh, it's changed so much over the my lifetime. I have a former student of mine, fifth grade. I remember seeing him doing pirouettes on the playground. And I pegged him. At least I thought I did. And then later on, sure enough, and he's very now very active in the arts community here in Tulsa, has a husband, supportive family, and it's just like, oh, you know, it's become normal, much more normalized, and I hope it continues to be normalized where we don't have to live with any fear. That it's just, we're kind of at the point where it's like, I don't give a damn anymore. You know, you live with who I am, how I am, and if you don't like it, then go away or do whatever and I'll survive. I'm a worker bee, so it doesn't bother me. Pat Hobbs: Well, I've got my political comments, some that need to remain. I need to sit on it for a minute, but these bigots out there, these right-wing bigots, why now? What have we done? Like I said, what have we done? You still get your hair cut by a gay barber, okay? You still buy flowers at a gay florist, don't you? I don't understand why this movement is... And the one thing that scares me, though, is that they call them immigration detention centers for all these warehouses, that these empty warehouses, they're going to put all these immigration…I don't think it's going to be mostly for immigrants. I think it's going to turn out they're going to pick and choose what part of society goes in these places. That's just my opinion. I don't think there's enough immigrants to fill up all these warehouses. Toby Jenkins: Any other things for the future or for those who come after us or for today, for people who are wanting to know what to do. John Orsulak: And use your resources, the Equality Center. I hope it survives and continues to flourish because you need this. You need support. You know, if you're not alone, they need to know that. Pat Hobbs: The one thing I have learned from the Rainbow Room and the people who come here is that we are designated here at OkEq as a safe place. Always have been. And I guess it was during Pride or maybe that first Pride piano thing that we 26 �had a couple of years ago. But I had a lady come up to me and say, I feel safe here. Yes, that's why we need this place. Toby Jenkins: Well, it is March 19th, 2026 and today our interviewees, our special guests have been John Orsulak and Pat Hobbs. And they've been together 36 years. And joining us have been Dennis Neill, the founder of Oklahomans for Equality, and Amanda Thompson, the archivist. And this is Toby Jenkins. Thank you so much for tuning in. 27 � https://history.okeq.org/files/original/0655db9527d9c965e3ae77cf9ab9ecd7.mp4 5fe3a81c4475dc5db209b6fe8bc46c29 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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] John Orsulak and Pat Hobbs Interview Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource John Orsulak, Pat Hobbs, Toby Jenkins, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 19, 2026 Subject The topic of the resource John Orsulak and Pat Hobbs Oral History Interview from March 19, 2026 Description An account of the resource This interview with Pat Hobbs and John Orsulak explores their 36-year relationship following a chance encounter at a church, their careers and longtime involvement in theater and music. They also highlight their activism within the LGBTQ community in Tulsa and the vision they had and implemented to bring the Lynn Riggs Theatre at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center to life. They share personal stories, including the passing of Pat’s brother to AIDS, insights on community involvement, and their vision for a more inclusive future. 2026 AIDS AIDS/HIV Dennis Neill Dennis R. Neill HIV/AIDs interview John Orsulak Lynn Riggs Theatre OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Pat Hobbs Toby Jenkins transcript video https://history.okeq.org/files/original/50c75d314ecd3bfe576df8fa1e4a818c.mp4 1cd0a806c5b45b06b12b8f2d5493d4a0 https://history.okeq.org/files/original/606165fb7c1a6f95167aa8b039f4cf5b.pdf 7df047509f8b51766c8cfb51987ff046 PDF Text Text GLBT History Project 03/31/2006 Interview of Leslie Penrose by Laura Belmonte Laura: It is Friday, March 31 2006 and we are at the community of Hope Church with Leslie Penrose for today’s interview. Leslie, let’s just start with some basic biographical information. When were you born, what was your family and education like and those sorts of things? Leslie: I was born in Amarillo, Texas in 1951 into an oil field family. And I grew up all over the Midwest and lived in almost every state west of the Mississippi. I went to 18 different schools between kindergarten and college. Roots are something I long for and moving is something I do well. Although, in my adult life I have lived in Tulsa since 1981 and really do feel like I’m establishing roots here and that this is home. Although my husband and I have moved to like 5 different houses so we still practice the moving thing. Laura: Did you have any brothers and sisters? Leslie: I did. I had two younger brothers and a younger sister so I was the oldest of four: and they’re all still living. My dad is dead but my mother is still living. Laura: And where did you go to college? Leslie: T.U. I got my masters at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa. Laura: And you mentioned you are married, how long have you been? Leslie: 35 years. I got married right out of high school. He was in Marine Corps and it was just 6 months out of high school and I moved to California to take up residence on the marine base. Laura: Wow. And do you have children? 1 �Leslie: I do. I have two. One was born there in California after we had been married about two years. And the other one was born on the East coast. We moved back here to go to school and OU and from here we moved Richmond, Virginia for Steve’s job and my second child was born there. Laura: Well let’s move onto the issues of the gay community and gay people and such. When was the first time you recall hearing anything about the gay community in Tulsa? Leslie: I don’t know about hearing about the gay community in Tulsa but I do know when my own sense of awareness of gay issues happened. In the late 70s I was a banker. And I was not happy with that and I took a trip to Central America to try and figure things out and find out what I wanted to be when I grew up. And the leader of the trip that I went down there with was a gay man. And it was a very transforming trip for me and my relationship with him was very transforming. And I experienced him in a very pastoral, religious way. And I asked him one day why he wasn’t a pastor because he just had such a gift for it. And he said, “Well I would be except that the church won’t let me. I’m gay.” And it was not anything that I ever consciously knew. I mean I must have been aware of it on some level but it had never been part of my consciousness that that was where the church was. And it just blew my socks off and I continued to maintain a relationship with him but it actually that experience and my experience in Central America that drove me to seminary. And once I was in seminary, that issue and other issues of justice just kept pushing me to the edge: and I’d quit seminary and start it again and then I think I can’t do this church because it’s way too oppressive. But there was also something within me that came out of that trip to Central America that said, “My experience says there’s a different way of being a church, a way that is life giving.” And I knew that, and I wanted to be a part of that. Laura: Talk to me a little bit about your experiences at Phillips. Why did you decide to go there? Leslie: Well I decided to go there because it was the only seminary available to me. I was a young mother with 2 �young kids. I needed a local place. They were just starting there Tulsa campus back when I started in 1985 and they called and asked if I wanted to be a part of that very first class that met here in Tulsa. And so I did that. Laura: And you found this a kind of conflicted experience? were they saying about issues of social justice and homosexuality that you had to wrestle with? What Leslie: You know I don’t know if it was what they were saying as it was what the gospel was saying. I think actually the school was pretty mainline and kind of scared to enter into the really tough issues. I had, for most of my life, been involved in civil rights issues for African Americans but as I began to read the gospel and put things together it became clear to me that something was wrong with saying there are some folks that don’t fit into the salvation plan or however you want to talk about it. And the more I challenged that in my own thinking, the more I needed to embrace other people in the dialogue. I was the president of the student council at Phillips and actually challenged them to, for the first time, put gay and lesbian issues on the agenda and actually take them to a board meeting and tell them that Phillips might be a safe place for gay and lesbian students. It was not at that time. And they were pretty threatened by that first dialogue but it opened the door and they are now a very affirming place for gay and lesbian students. At about the same time, while I was in seminary, I was a part-time youth pastor at Memorial Methodist Church and I got a call one day from a friend of mine at St. Johns hospital, she was a nurse, and she said that there was a young man here and he is dying of AIDS and he hasn’t had any visitors here for over a month. Would you mind coming? I knew nothing about AIDS but I knew someone shouldn’t die with visitors for a month. So I went and it was a baptism by fire. When I got to him I asked if I could come in and he said sure. He said who are you? And I told him and then he said, “Oh you don’t even need to bother to have to stay. I know everything you have to say, the church has already told me I’m going to hell.” And it just broke my heart. I just said I don’t believe that. And he let me stay a few minutes so we could talk and when I left I asked if I could come back the next day and visit and he said yes. And I was there 3 �everyday for about a week until that young man died. During that time I got to meet a couple of his friends who came by because they had heard he was going to die. And from there I just got connected. It was like all of a sudden, there were a number of people who needed to deal with their spiritual issues relating to HIV and AIDS. I got connected with Dr. Beale and Ted Campbell and all of a sudden I was like “the chaplain” for Dr. Beale’s office. And then one day Ted Campbell called me and asked me to do some work with his HIV therapy group—that they had some spiritual issues to deal with. So I went, I was there for about an hour, and it was actually a pretty hostile group at first. Not too willing to talk. They had a few nice questions to ask me, but there wasn’t a conversation. And then right before it was time to go, one of the young men, Jim Berry, looking at me and said, “I have a question for you. So tell me why it is that God would create somebody and then condemn them to hell. Tell me what kind of God does that.” And the only response I had was a God who needs to die. Because that was true for me, the God that they were carrying around with them needed to die. So they invited me back and went back to that group for several months and worked on theological issues with them about their own belovedness in God’s eyes. Laura: How did you become aware of the difficulties that GLBT people faced at Phillips? Leslie: I just became aware that there were a couple of lesbian students there that were not out and were not willing to be out and only shared their story with me because I began to break the silence about the issue and ask those kinds of questions. In just becoming a safe place, several students decided to share their stories. Laura: Did you, yourself, have people assume you were a lesbian? Leslie: Absolutely, all the time. In fact, when I first community of Hope I intentionally took off my wedding ring because I got scared of the straight community relying on the fact that I was straight to make me safe in religious settings. Because the people I was working with were not safe in religious settings unless they pretended to be straight. So 4 �I was just unwilling for it to be that obvious that I was straight. Laura: You weren’t willing to flaunt your heterosexuality? Leslie: Yeah… I just wasn’t willing for someone else to use it. It just made me furious that that’s what made me safe. Laura: So what year did you finish seminary and how did your career trajectory go after that? Leslie: I was ordained in 1989 and I was still on staff at Memorial Drive. In 1990 a young gay couple started coming to the church that I was ministering at. And then another couple came and so on. At first the church was pretty receptive to the first two: tokenism thing was okay with them. But when it became 4 and 6 and 8 and a whole pew of young gay men, and most of them had AIDS, the church got more threatened. So in 1992 while I was in Central America leading a mission trip they had these secret meetings and when I got back they told me I needed to leave. They were no longer comfortable with my ministry. Well in the United Methodist Church that’s not how it works. The church doesn’t decide when you leave, only the bishop can decide that. So the bishop told them, “You don’t decide when she leaves. I do. And she will stay until June when it is the normal time for people to leave.” So between August of 92 and June of 93, I was in this horribly painful situation where I was serving this church where a significant number of the people did not want me there, yet a significant number did. The church began to split and the pastor got threatened and he wrote letters to the GLBT members who had already joined that they couldn’t do things like go into the kitchen because they had AIDS and they couldn’t teach Sunday school. You know, you’ve been there and heard it all. And so I went to the bishop and said, “Fine, if I’m going to move that that’s fine, that’s the system. But put someone in Tulsa who can be a safe place for these people. We’ve opened the door now and it needs to be provided.” And he said, “You need to start that congregation.” Well politically at that time the United Methodist Church would not support my opening a normal congregation that open and affirming. They just said no. So he and I put our heads together and he had just been 5 �in Central America and I often went to Central America and so we came up with the idea of creating a base community, which is really a model out of Latin America, primarily Catholic churches, whereby people who feel abandoned by the hierarchy who is pretty much in bed with the oligarchy in Central and South America. And they formed there own communities of justice and spirituality where they are the church and occasionally a priest may come and offer the sacraments the church is the people and they are doing the work of nurturing spirituality and beginning the read the bible in different ways and to question theology. And we thought this would make sense for Tulsa and we just made it up. And at annual conference in June of 1993 he commissioned me to begin a base community here in Tulsa, whatever that might mean. Laura: What was this bishop’s name? Leslie: Dan Solomon, a very courageous man. He found 12,000 dollars for me to have a part-time salary and that’s how it started: no place to meet, no nothing except a group of people who were willing. I went to several different churches and finally found one, Saint Mary United Methodist Church on North Denver, that would allow us to meet in the evenings in their basement. So on June 21, 1993 we had the very first gathering of community. There had been a group of 12 or 13 that had been meeting in my living room for two or three months trying to figure out what we wanted this church to look like. It was half gay and half straight and that was an important piece for us. We wanted life to not only be diverse in that kind of way but also in a financial way to bear witness to what was important: so we decided that for every dollar we spent on ourselves we would also spend a dollar beyond our walls. And we’ve done that now for 13 years. So we had this wonderful gathering of about 50 people in June of 1993 and gave birth to Community Hope. We met there at Saint Mary for about two months and then one evening one of their morning members saw one of our couples kissing in the parking lot and just freaked and went to the pastor and the rest of the congregation and within a few weeks they asked us to leave. So we rented a little life insurance building on the corner of Yale and Pine and were there for about two and one half years. We outgrew it and then we 6 �rented a warehouse on 2nd and Utica and completely gutted and redid the warehouse and it was a wonderful space for us and we had a wonderful time. We were there until early 1998. And then the city came and said we couldn’t stay because our zoning wasn’t right for being a church. So we began to look to look for another building. We were, what, 5 years old and looking for our 4th building. Laura: It’s a good thing you had the experience… Leslie: That’s right, all of my life. So then we started trying to buy a building. We tried to buy three different church buildings and once they found out who we were they wouldn’t sell us the building. So finally—you know if there is anything I regret in my ministry I think this is what it is—we bought the building in the closet. We had one of our members buy it and transfer it to us and that was in 1998. It was a deeply painful thing and it was fear that drove us to it: fear that we weren’t going to have any place to call home. But I almost wish we hadn’t because it ended up hurting us in significant ways but I didn’t know that until a year later when I looked back at some of the conflict—and we’d never had conflict in our congregation— that had started, the ways some people were acting in dysfunctional ways. And I think it was because we had gone back into the closet in order to buy that building. Laura: Let’s back up for a moment: I would assume some of this got public attention of some sort. When was the first time you remember gaining attention in the media for your outreach in the GLBT community? Leslie: Actually the Tulsa World did a story in probably 1995 and it was very positive about who we were and the outreach we were doing and that was probably the first time we got attention. We didn’t really get much other publicity until in 1999 when I was brought up on charges: and then there was lots of it, nationally. Laura: When you were interacting with these leasing agents and realtors, had you been cognizant of laws on housing discrimination not including sexual orientation? 7 �Leslie: I think I probably had, but since this was a church it never entered my mind that you would turn down the whole church! It still just blows me away. Laura: The reason I ask is because we probably looked at 20 different spaces when we rented and that was just 2 years ago. Leslie: And how painful it is! I mean I’m a straight woman, I had never dealt with any of this before and had no idea of how painful it could be. Laura: Did you have any sort of dialogue within the church about the dissention the decision to buy, sort of undercover, was causing? Leslie: No, we never had a dialogue about it. I preached about it and I think that in and of itself did the healing that I think was needed. We named what was going on and that helped to heal the wounds: to say that we really messed up and we aren’t going to do this again. Laura: In relation to your having this sort of ministry, churches don’t exist as little islands, when was the first time you recall encountering something from a different religious bent here in Tulsa? Leslie: In 1990, when I was ordained elder in the United Methodist Church I was charged with heresy when I came up for ordination. And the charge was that I didn’t believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ as a literal event. But what was behind that charge was the work I was doing with the gay and lesbian community and how threatened people were by that. Terry Ewing who at that time was an associate minister at Will Rogers United Methodist Church was the person who actually filed the charges, saying that I shouldn’t be ordained because I didn’t honor the covenant. That was a deeply painful thing: to stand on the floor of the annual conference and have people debate as too whether or not you are appropriate to ministry is pretty difficult. But it ended up being a pretty wonderful thing because it did two things: It made me decide whether or not I was really willing to go through with this and how important this was to my ministry because all I 8 �had to do was kind of back down. But I decided right then and there that if I couldn’t do the ministry that I was called to do then being ordained was meaningless. I think that decision on the floor of the conference is what got me through later challenges in my ministry that were much more difficult and much more painful. So I ended up being grateful for that initial little baptism by fire. The other this it did was the conference ended up having to deal with what it was going to mean to have diversity in its midst— and the vote ended up like 590 to 17 or something like that. But what it meant later on that night when I was actually ordained with the public there, at Boston Avenue Methodist and the place was filled, and the bishop always says, when he ordains a person, if there are any family or people from this persons church here please stand, when he put his hand on me almost the entire room stood. And they didn’t know me or care about me personally but it was their way of saying we are not going to be a church who says no to diversity. It was a powerful moment. Laura: Was this coexistent or did it precede debates on GLBT clergy in the church? Leslie: Oh it was right in the middle of it. The Methodist Church has been debating that for years and years and years. Laura: This obviously was going in a different direction. Leslie: Yes, this wasn’t about gay clergy but about what restrictions we place on who we minister to. Laura: How about form non-Methodist clergy in Tulsa? Leslie: Well that’s just how it’s always been in Tulsa. I walk into a room and the room kind of divides by where they are on this issue and other kinds of liberal issues. There are a lot of times I become sort of a metaphor for liberal religion in many settings and I’ve just gotten used to that. Laura: Now who would you construe as having been allies in this? Were there others making similar sorts of overtures to the GLBT community as you were? Or were you the trend setter? 9 �Leslie: I think in 1993 there were not. Community Hope was the first open and affirming, the first other than MCC to be open and affirming. There were certainly clergy friends that I had who were sympathetic but they were not out there pushing the envelope. Laura: After 1998, what happened? Leslie: In 1996 the United Methodist Church passed a law saying that Methodist clergy cannot do same-sex blessings and they cannot happen in United Methodist churches. We had been doing them all along. We would publish them in our newsletter and there was no secrecy. When the law passed, we had a meeting here and said okay were not going to quit. Then we started asking ourselves, what is our theology of weddings, how do we justify what we do? So we put together a group that began writing a document and researching our theology on weddings and in 1997 we had a church wide meeting and adopted this theology and that we are going to do these weddings. At about that same time the bishop who had started this congregation left and we got a new bishop: Bruce Blake. He said stop. There’s no negotiating this, stop. We said we can’t do that: we can’t stop doing our ministry. So we continued and we began doing this game playing with the bishop and the conference. They’d say okay send us a video of what you are doing. So we’d send them a video of holy union and they would say, okay you can keep doing them but you can’t wear your stall and you can’t bless the rings and you cant say those magic words I announce you as wife and wife or whatever. So we tried playing that game for awhile because we really wanted to dance—if they were going to move a little and let us do them then we could move a little as well. So I blessed the rings before the ceremony and not during it and it just became clearer and clearer that it had no integrity. We went back to the cabinet and said we just can’t do this. It’s like people being asked to cut off one of their own arms. Don’t kill yourself just cut off a piece of yourself—and we just couldn’t do that. So then, the strangest thing, in 1998 there was a holy union in California that a whole bunch or clergy did collectively instead of as individual clergy and they asked clergy across the nation to join. They asked clergy to sign on as clergy in abstentia: officiates in 10 �abstentia. So I singed on. Well there was a lay person in Eufaula who decided that was unacceptable to him and so he filed charges against me for doing a holy union in abstentia in January. And then channel 11was doing a report on those charges and they got in touch with some people I had performed a holy union for and got a hold of their video tape and put it on the news… And so the bishop filed charges and it just got to be this ridiculous mess. And so finally he just said there are charges filed and you can stop doing this, or go to trial, or leave the denomination. Well it didn’t make any sense to go to trial: I’m guilty. Why do we want to spend time and money to go through that. So I began to work with the United Church of Christ and the charges came on February 4, 1999 and I transferred my quarters on March 4th 1999. Laura: And how did all of this effect the congregation? Leslie: We lost a huge number of people. We were averaging 90 in worship and then there was a gradual slide. It dwindled down to about 35. One more time the church has said you’re welcome but then resent that. I had been in the Methodist church for 15 years as a clergy and there were a lot of relationships there. Laura: How did you make the overture to the United Church of Christ and how did the change affect the church? Leslie: It was really interesting. The story I told you about going to Central America and the young man that was gay, well he wrote to me and said he had joined the United Church of Christ and that is where you belong. So I went to talk to Russ Finnick which is the only other UCC church in town and he said of course you belong here. He drove me over to Kingfisher to talk with the committee and he nurtured me through the process and was my mentor. Laura: You’ve experienced a lot more first hand homophobia than a lot of gay people I know! So what sort of outreach and programming was the church doing? Leslie: Well in that first year we started we started the mission to feed the homeless which we still do every month. Our first worship was in June, we stared to feed the homeless in 11 �July, we started the GED program in the jails in July, we took a mission trip to Nicaragua in August and those things all continue. And our HIV ministry is such a part of who we are. Today we are probably 25% HIV infected. We’ve lost of about 60 of our members along the way. Laura: You’ve mentioned Jeff Beale, when was the first time you really encountered the AIDS epidemic? Was it before your ministry? Leslie: I’m sure I’d heard about it but it wasn’t a part of my daily life: and I don’t think I knew anything about it or the bigotry around it. Laura: What were some of the things you remember about how the community was reacting? Leslie: Just there was incredible fear. No one knew how you got it and people were afraid to touch anything that someone with HIV had touched. Families didn’t know how to react. It was such a big part of my ministry to go in and held hands and hugged and talked with these guys and having family members understand that it was okay. It was so hard to find nursing homes to find people, home health care was almost impossible, even funeral homes… Lots of the funerals would be done at Community of Hope because there was no where else to go. Laura: So you change denominations and go through this searing experience. Did you get national attention and how would you describe that experience? Leslie: Oh a flash in the pan. Jimmy Creach was another Methodist brought up on charges and it was in a couple national papers and theological journals. It was so insignificant compared to what was happening here that I didn’t really pay attention to it. Laura: Talk a little more about the local fires. Leslie: They were willing to reprint whatever people said and that got pretty nasty. I remember one of the news channels came to do a report here and we were clearing the church and I said what in the world are we going to do with 80 12 �United Methodist hymnals and that’s the piece they chose to put on the air! And I got lots of messages: how can you call yourself a minister and say that you know the bible? People put hours of work into trying to convince me that I’m wrong. But we also got an equal amount of mail that was supportive. I got one card that said, “I will hold my head a little higher because of you. Thank You.” That’s pretty amazing. Laura: Tell me about how the church has changed since all of this happened. Any particularly notable events or members over the years? Leslie: Well one thing I want to say is Phillips seminary, we have several professors and students that are a part of our congregation and that has been such a supportive and wonderful institution for us. Dr. Brandon Scott has written a book called “Re-imagine our World” and the last chapter is about Community of Hope and in particular his relationship with one young gay man who died of AIDS. And I’m really grateful that a straight white male in a powerful position is willing and able to look and say that I was really changed by this young man that people say doesn’t count and doesn’t matter. It’s been so wonderful to spend the last five years of my life to pour my energy into creating ministry and not fighting: those first 7 or 8 years were spend fighting the institution or at least defending ourselves from it and now we are dancing with it and it is so wonderful to be able to use your energy for creative things and not fighting institutions. Laura: How has all of this affected your husband and children? Leslie: It affected my children profoundly: they don’t go to church and have never been able to find one that they feel doesn’t have hypocrisy. And they are never going to find one like that: we are human, political animals and hypocrisy is going to be a part of our lives. But they just have no tolerance for it and are having a hard time figuring out what religious life means to them. My husband is just a rock. He was probably more wounded by the stuff with the United Methodist Church because he couldn’t do anything about it: all he could do was sit there and watch them hurt me and he has enough white male in him (ex marine) that 13 �he wants to be the knight in shining armor. And he is still angry. And that whole add about Open Doors, Open Hearts, Open Minds, well he just blows up every time. You know, I’m not angry anymore: we’re free of that now. I had some wonderful years and they gave me a great congregation. But it’s been hard for him. Laura: There’s been a vocal and organized GLBT community for quite awhile in Tulsa, but that hasn’t translated to big political names despite the city’s size. Why do you suspect that is the case? Leslie: First of all I’ve seen lots of incredible changes. In 1993 when Community of Hope opened there was nothing for the gay community besides bars. Even like the pride star was inside a bar! It was inside the bar. The group at TOHR didn’t have a home: there were just bars. I’m really grateful that it has become so much more mainstream in Tulsa. As for why, I think it’s the same reason Tulsa hasn’t progressed more with issues of racism and poverty. I think middle class privilege affects us in ways that keep us from really dealing with issues in the long term way that we need to: we enter into the struggle for a little while, but if change doesn’t happen quickly, we have other things to do—we have busy lives and enough privilege that we move on. Laura: How has the gay community and the community at large supported you over the years? Can you give me some examples of that? Leslie: Well Nancy McDonald has always been very supportive, financially and in all other ways. People like Marcus Rice, who works at Williams, and people who work in those corporate settings, like Dennis Neill, who are just there to be supportive and let you know that they are behind you. Laura: Is there anything else you’d like to add? If not, I appreciate your time. Leslie: Well I appreciate yours. And I appreciate the gift of the journey. Transcribed by Matthew Warren 14 � 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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 [2006] Leslie Penrose Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource March 31, 2006 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on March 31, 2006. Born in Amarillo, Texas in 1951, Leslie graduated from the University of Tulsa with a degree in Religion and then a Masters of Divinity at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa. She discusses her marriage, children and work in the LGBTQ+ community as a faith leader and early outreach to those impacted by HIV/AIDS. With the Methodist Bishop’s support, in 1993 she founded the Community of Hope when church leaders at her mainstream church became uncomfortable with her AIDS outreach. Facing continued pressure from the denomination, in 1999 she transferred her ordination to United Church of Christ to continue her ministry to the LGBTQ+ community and support for those living with HIV/AIDS. Subject The topic of the resource Leslie Penrose Oral History Project Interview from March 31, 2006 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Leslie Penrose, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2006 AIDS AIDS/HIV Community of Hope HIV HIV/AIDs interview Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte Leslie Penrose OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript Phillips Theological Seminary transcript TU United Church of Christ University of Tulsa 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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] Janie Reeves Interview Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcription of Laura Belmonte’s interview with Janie Reeves on November 19, 2005. Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research. Janie was born in Denver in 1971. She attended the University of Tulsa and became involved with Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights, the predecessor to Oklahomans for Equality. She served as board president in 1991. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 19, 2005 Subject The topic of the resource Janie Reeves Oral History Project Interview from November 19, 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Janie Reeves, Laura Belmonte, Dennis Neill 2005 available at Center Board President Janie Reeves Dennis Neill interview Janie Reeves Laura Belmonte OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript TOHR TOHR Board of Directors transcript TU Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Board of Directors University of Tulsa 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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. Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research. 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://history.okeq.org/files/original/cb45fd2c080c696f642bbf3a4ec34ca2.mp4 5200eb31f5519513b3b1c578c0a4b556 https://history.okeq.org/files/original/0a9ad56686aff1c861791cbd6e559964.pdf 9f05611ad7684b1eccd5aa7a33466e4d PDF Text Text Oklahomans for Equality Oral History Interview with Jeremy Simmons Interview Conducted by Dennis Neill Date: January 21, 2026 Transcribed and Edited By: Dennis Neill using Reduct.Video AI, February 26, 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 Jeremy Simmons Keywords Jeremy Simmons, LGBTQ+, sexual orientation, HIV awareness, community advocacy, personal identity, religious background, nonprofit management, Tulsa, equality Takeaways  Jeremy grew up in a conservative, religious environment.  He navigated his sexual identity amidst societal expectations.  Experiences of bullying shaped his understanding of acceptance.  He identifies as more attracted to men but has explored bisexuality.  Performance art has been a form of self-expression for him.  Community engagement has been a significant part of his life.  He has worked with various organizations for HIV awareness.  Transitioning from OKQ to HOPE was a pivotal moment in his career.  Nonprofit management presents unique challenges and opportunities.  He believes in the potential for positive change in the community. Summary In this interview, Jeremy Simmons shares his journey of self-discovery and advocacy within the LGBTQ+ community. Growing up in a conservative, religious environment, he navigated the complexities of his sexual identity while facing societal expectations and bullying. His experiences shaped his commitment to community engagement and HIV awareness, leading to significant roles in various organizations. Jeremy reflects on the challenges of nonprofit management and expresses hope for the future of the LGBTQ+ community, emphasizing the importance of continued advocacy and support. 2 �Chapters 00:00 Jeremy Simmons Oral History Interview January 22, 2026 01:24:24 Introduction and Early Life 01:27:21 Religious Background and Identity 01:30:25 Navigating Sexual Orientation in Adolescence 01:33:35 Experiences of Bullying and Acceptance 01:36:31 Understanding Bisexuality and Self-Identification 01:39:24 Relationships and Social Circles 01:42:27 Coming Out and Community Engagement 01:45:21 Work History and Involvement with Equality Center 01:48:09 HIV Testing and Support Services 01:51:19 Challenges in Healthcare Access 01:54:15 Personal Experiences with HIV and Community Support 02:03:57 The Evolution of HIV Treatment and Public Perception 02:08:30 Community Outreach and Testing Initiatives 02:13:33 Navigating Funding Challenges in Nonprofits 02:20:23 The Impact of Government Regulations on Nonprofits 02:25:31 The Journey of Hope: From Formation to Growth 02:32:55 Reflections on Personal Growth and Community Engagement 02:40:16 Advocacy and the Changing Landscape of LGBTQ+ Rights 02:47:42 Looking Forward: Optimism for the Future Jeremy Simmons Oral History Interview January 21, 2026 Dennis Neill: Good afternoon. It is January, the 21st, 2026, and we're in the Nancy and Joe McDonald Rainbow Library at the Equality Center and we're having the opportunity to interview Jeremy Simmons. And Jeremy, would you state your name and give us some basic biographical information, like your birthday, your early growing up experiences, a little bit of your family background that you might want to share and your early education? Jeremy Simmons: Sure, Jeremy Simmons, I grew up in and around Bartlesville, so Washington County, so in the city of Bartlesville and it's, and in very small places like around Ramona and Tulala, like so in the middle of nowhere. At one point we had a 3 �house. It was like a half a mile away from anybody, so remote for some of that. I was born a long time ago and I'm much older now and I moved to Tulsa in 94 and that's where I've lived here over half my life and because it's been so long and like all of my adult life, I think of Tulsa as my home now. Dennis Neill: And where'd you do your elementary and high school work? Jeremy Simmons: That's a great question. I did it in different, at Caney Valley in Bartlesville, where the two schools that I was in and Wesleyan religious school at the beginningDennis Neill: is that the one in Bartlesville? Jeremy Simmons: Yes Dennis Neill: What year did you graduate from high school? Jeremy Simmons: Sometime in the 90s, and they have 56 peopleDennis Neill: Did you go immediately on to post-secondary? Jeremy Simmons: Not right away. I spent a little time at Tulsa Community College trying to sort of know what I wanted to do, and then I went to the University of Tulsa later in the 90s. I have an associate's degree in humanities from TCC and I had worked on a sociology degree that I did not complete. Dennis Neill: Okay, great, great, anything else that you can share with us about your family background, like siblings or other information you want to share about? Jeremy Simmons: So my life before I moved here was quite different and I don't really like to dig super deep into it. Just to be honest with you. I feel comfortable saying I grew up in extremely isolated rural areas, pretty religious background, as you can imagine. I did pre-k, kindergarten and first grade at the Wesleyan school, which is quite traditional conservative. So, coming from that background, although the interesting thing about it was kind of interesting going to the Weslyan School, I was surrounded by people from different countries and different races and nationalities, so then going to smaller schools and being not around that was sometimes more conservative, honestly, being in the public schools in a small town. Dennis Neill: Talk a little bit more about your early religious experience and how that's evolved over time. Any intersection with how you identify from a sexual orientation? Jeremy Simmons: Oh, that's a great question. So for me, in the way that I grew up, so all of my family was very religious and most of the people in my area were just very religious. So religion just dominated everything. And at one point for many years, next to a Southern Baptist Church, it was this like the second biggest building in town after the school. So it makes quite an impression. I was very Christian in a very traditional conservative way because I thought that that was there wasn't really any thought about it. It's like when you grow up in rural spaces a lot of times it's just like, everybody thinks that abortion is wrong and 4 �everybody thinks that homosexuality is wrong and everybody supports the troops and it's like they're sort of a far-right cultural line that blends with the religion and you just like 80- 90% of the people feel that way, or they pretend to. Yeah, so when I was quite young I was actually fairly conservative, which, looking back, it's kind of like okay, but then it's just kind of hard to integrate that old life with who I was later. But I also started making out with boys when I was a very young. Dennis Neill: Do you mind sharing what age you're talking about? Jeremy Simmons: Definitely by sixth grade, maybe by fifth grade range, roughly so. So even though everybody was far right religious, there was same-sex stuff and drinking. There were things that always happened. They were just very underground. You just had to be very, very careful about them, right? Dennis Neill: In that period, were you also trying to deal and date the opposite sex while you were in junior high, high school? How did you kind of blend those thoughts with your other aspects of your peers? Jeremy Simmons: That's another really great question and it's so hard to put into words. So, without, especially without doing like getting into psychobabble language, but cognitive dissonance is definitely a thing. I viewed myself as heterosexual and so I had girlfriends, but I didn't want to have sex with any of them and I did want to have sex with men and so, but it got to a certain point. as you get older, I think it's harder to even be gay undercover in some of those situations. I stopped doing anything with boys by probably 14, 15, definitely 16.. I remember by the time we were all driving age for sure, , like none of us were doing that anymore. It was considered like something that you just did as a kid and didn't talk about it anymore. So I just thought I genuinely thought for a while that if I just kept giving it a try, I'd meet the right girl. That's where my head was with all that. Dennis Neill: And did you go to like the proms or the other school events like that with… Jeremy Simmons: Very weirdly, yeah, I know, it was like when I talk to people who grew up, they want to talk to people my age or older. I come across a lot of parallels, or even younger people who grew up in rural areas still like who grew up 10, 20 years later than me. They're like: oh yeah, I mean, you've had to have a girlfriend. That was just a part of it. So also to, I was also kind of smaller. I wasn't super athletic. Not getting picked on meant being conservative and being straight and doing certain things. Dennis Neill: So did you have bullying experiences? Jeremy Simmons: Oh sure Dennis Neill: Over what reasons? Or what characteristics? Jeremy Simmons: I mean sometimes I would get called a faggot or or a sissy or whatever, something that, some type of equivalent of that. Some of that was 5 �probably more intentionally directed. And then some of it is just things that people say that are hurtful, like, if someone's slightly effeminate or smaller framed. They're gonna be compared to being girlish, separate from their gender identity or sexuality. I think it's just a jab, right, it's something that could be hurtful. And then some of it felt like more directed. I remember there was a lot of different experiences. Sometimes a lot of kids that were like one to three years older than us and that kind of range would try and isolate us and pick on us, and there was a one time where some older kids may just take our clothes off and I thought something like sexual assault was going to happen and it didn't, fortunately. That was one of the weirder things, but that's one of those things that happens when you get a bunch of other kids that are all supposed to be straight and hyper conservative. Dennis Neill: Were there any of these peers as you're growing up through high school that were more clearly out and comfortable with their different sexual orientations? Jeremy Simmons: No, not so. It depends on where. Probably in Bartlesville, but I didn't go to school there- very much, I think, and definitely not in the Weslyan school. Like you literally couldn't be gay and be at the Weslyan school, like that's a part of their rules. So it's like that wouldn't have been it, there wouldn't have been an option. At that time they only had school up through sixth grade and I quit before then. There are probably kids that that, looking back on it, seemed more effeminate or seem more physically intimate with the same-sex. That might have been something, but when you're young enough, that's all, that's okay. , there's a certain level like there's a little bit of bullying. But unless it gets like, unless you get really affectionate or something , like a little bit of that's okay. It's whenyou get into junior high kind of…Sixth grade and up is when I think people really start having more expectations. That was my experience anyway, and so everything started to get more codified, going to the dances and having regular girlfriends, you are serious enough to change exchange class rings, like there are certain rituals. It's like you needed to participate, and it was much easier for you if you did participate in that. So to not participate in that, even if you were straight and cisgendered and healthy, like, even if you were able, but like even if you didn't have a lot of bullying potential, if you removed yourself from the heterosexual norms, you definitely made yourself a target, so you had to either be- and some kids could do it. I remember the few people that did it- they had to have like a schtick, like they had to be the stoner with the motorcycle or something, like they had to have something, like you could be a black sheep in some, in some ways, but you couldn't just be like, oh, I'm just not gonna date me, buddy, right? Dennis Neill: Talk a little bit more about the process of when you finally decided what your orientation was, and how do you identify now that kind of that path that you followed in getting comfortable with how you currently identify? Jeremy Simmons: Right after high school, I decided that I was bisexual and I actually had sex with women, but very little and I didn't hate it. So bisexuality is somewhat applicable to me, I feel, but it was definitely for me. 6 �It was more of a transitional phase, and I hate saying that because a lot of people sort of pigeonhole bisexuality in general as that, and I very much don't feel that way. There's definitely bisexuality and pansexuality and all the other things are valid for me. I'm just very strongly attracted to other men. I had one girlfriend that was just like you're just not that into this, you just need to be gay. I spent two semesters briefly in Stillwater. I always forget about that in interviews and I was not very successful at school there because I was just interested in figuring out my sexuality and drinking, and doing whatever, so that actually I always forget that part that played. But even though it was just a couple of semesters, it played a huge role in my development because that's because I don't think I would have been able to be bisexual in Bartlesville or Ramona or wherever Copan, anywhere else around there. I mean like none of those places would have tolerated that. At the time in the 90s, I think a lot of people thought that that was just a bullshit thing, even amongst gay people and straight people. I think a lot of people were like, oh, there's just two genders and everybody's either straight or very gay. Everything seemed very bipolar in the 90s. You were just like: I'm this or that. Dennis Neill: Have you ever been married? Jeremy Simmons: No. Dennis Neill: What about any significant long-term relationships that you want to share. Jeremy Simmons: I dated a guy named Robert who's still saved in my phone as bastard ex-boyfriend for a couple of years in the 90s. He's actually a very dear friend. Once we figured out that we were supposed to be friends, everything was great. Um, that's my longest relationship. So when you asked earlier how I identify myself, I try not to do a lot of labels. I just I find it kind of constraining and tedious and then even when you get, even when you pick a label, then five years from now, like the culture and the language is going to change. It just seems like, oh, I'm just human. But the question is very valid, because I am much more into men than women. I feel comfortable as a male, and have always been perceived as more male than female. I feel like it's important to state this is where I come from, this is what I am. But I've had fun dressing up as women. I won by comp, by by crowd vote, at an 80s prom with the full canes. I won prom queen dressed up as Annie Lennox one year. So it's like I'm not really a drag queen all the time, but I feel very comfortable being, I felt comfortable being intimate with women. I feel comfortable being in women's clothes. But I feel more comfortable as a man and more comfortable being with other men. Dennis Neill: Do you consider your drag experience like performance art when you've been on stage, or have you actually been on stage? Jeremy Simmons: Nnot in a traditional way where I would get tips, no, It's been fun, something I've done a handful of times successfully and it was very interesting. 7 �To explain more about me to- I am a little bit of an experience junkie, so I like to fully understand things by immersing myself in them, without doing something like going really hardcore, then I don't feel like I've understood something. But a lot of times I'll do something like dress up in drag. I also was on stage for an S&M ball that my friends did and it's very fun, it's very engaging, but then I'm like: got it done, so, and I don't really know how to put that into words when it comes to…when you talk about sexual identity, because some people like, well, you're a sex addict and I was like absolutely not, like I haven't had sex since before COVID. Sexual sex is very low priority for me, right, but asexuality also doesn't feel right. It's like I say one thing and somebody's always like: oh, so you're asexual and I'm like: no, like I'm physically capable of having sex and I'm interested in maybe doing it again. , probably with a guy now in your network of friends. I have a huge network of friends. So that's one of the nice things about not dating or not having kids: it gives you a lot of time to follow personal interests and develop friend networks. So, yes, I have tons of friends here and I never have enough time to keep up with all of them, which is lovely. I have some that are much closer, but I don't know, when I was younger it was much more important for me to identify as gay and I think because- but I think a part of that was because I was told that that was wrong and because it was so much harder to do that in the 90s- be openly gay, especially if you were young and didn't have a ton of money. I think for people who have a lot of money or people who live in certain cities, it's always been easier for anything . A lot of that identity stuff was very important to me then, and dating was very important to me. Then the 2000s hit, I just got less interested in it and so every now and then I'll date and it just seems to run its course faster and it's done. Dennis Neill: Did you immediately get acclimated to the gay and lesbian community, like through the bars or other social activities? Jeremy Simmons: Yeah, Dennis Neill: And what was kind of some of your first experiences, going out and socializing like locations? Jeremy Simmons: Yes,in the 80s and 90s at a certain point it was okay to go out to after-hours clubs and and whatever your age was, and then I think maybe 92 to 94 range, before I moved here, they changed the city, passed law saying that they couldn't do that anymore. When I was a baby, like I remember- I remember going to Icon that did after-hour stuff and I didn't have my driver's license yet, so I was probably 15 at the oldest. And while that wasn't a gay club, it was a very gay-friendly place. Yeah, I remember the name, but where is the location? It used to be on Peoria, Brookside proper, close to where, I think it was in or near where Sharkey's is right now. Dennis Neill: Okay, so it was on that side [east] of the street? 8 �Jeremy Simmons: Yep, on the east side, definitely. Because at one time there was also what, Concessions? Dennis Neill: Concessions was across the street, very close there. Jeremy Simmons: Icon was great. And it was definitely, for somebody who was trying to figure themselves out, being in an environment like rural Washington County, and then coming there where there were people dressed in drag, and there was goth people, and there was ravers, and there was weird old bikers, and people were doing drugs all over the place. And so that was a very different world. It was very interesting. It was very fun for me. I was very young, so I was a little too timid to get too involved with anything, but it was definitely fun to be a fly on the wall at that time. While I didn't grow up here, I do remember things from the 80s and earlier 90s from here, because I've always lived near Tulsa. I remember coming out to some of those spaces that were definitely gayadjacent. And like many other men my age, around that time, I went to the Toolbox before I was 21, and that's the bar, which is now the Eagle on 3rd. I don't remember when, but it would have been, I don't know, before I moved here in 94. Dennis Neill: Did you live on your own initially? Jeremy Simmons: I had roommates for quite a while. Dennis Neill: Gay, straight, mix, were they your roommates? Jeremy Simmons: I mainly lived with a straight couple at first, but a lot of the crew that I was in were kind of ambiguous. I fell in with a crew of people that were more in the rave scene. I think that they were, and they were doing, there were tons of drugs all the time. I remember that much. I think there was a little bit of like vague bisexuality, but most of them were straight. Dennis Neill: How about once you left the high school environment and went on for post-secondary and then up to today, have you personally experienced any discrimination and prejudice with regard to your sexual orientation or how people perceive your sexual orientation or close friends that have experienced that? Jeremy Simmons: Oh, sure. I've actually experienced fairly little. Well, I feel like it's fairly little. Sometimes when I describe my life story to people who grew up in other progressive places, they're like, Oklahoma sounds like a shithole. But I also, once I was here, I was just like, I'm gay if you don't like it, fuck off. I made a lot of decisions based off of being safe as a gay person. I do remember one of my first apartments that I lived in by myself on Riverside, the guy made me put down an extra deposit because he said that if I got sick from AIDS, it was something like that I was more of a risk. I was like, but I don't even have HIV. But he was like, no, you're welcome here. It's just anybody with health problems or anybody that's risky has to put down an extra $250 deposit, which was a lot of money at the time. And I thought that was weird. I still think it's weird looking back on it. I was originally an employee at the Equality Center and then Hope split off, but then we still worked with the Equality Center forever. I was here one time when a guy 9 �came in and broke a lamp in the hallway and said he was going to something, shoot everybody. I don't know. That would have been…It was when we were on Brookside, and so it would have been after 95, but not a lot after 95. Dennis Neill: Yeah, we were up in there from about 96 to about 99. Jeremy Simmons: I was going to say maybe 97, roughly. So again, when people ask me to do the dates, it's kind of hard because I have to pick anchor events. I don't remember years well. So I know that it was after we'd phased out the 42nd Street Clinic and integrated into there, and that's when we were becoming more public, as OkEq was becoming more public about being an LGBT center. I think that even at the beginning, even when we were doing stuff, there was an effort to kind of have a little bit of a vague gray umbrella around a lot of the language that we used. And then when that center started on Brookside, that just wasn't working anymore. It's like, this is where gay people are. Dennis Neill: So was that your first experience with TOHR, or when we had the location there at the 41st apartment, were you ever involved in that small space that we had with the hotline and a little community? Jeremy Simmons: Yeah, so like I said, I think in 95 I came there for services, and then in 96 I came back for services early and started volunteering there. I had a traditional day-hour job, I think, at the time, and they had night clinics Mondays and Thursdays, which I think they still do to this day. So I was volunteering on Monday or Thursday. One of the night clinics, once a week I would come in and volunteer a few hours. Yeah, and to refresh my memory, so we had the space there at like 39th and Harvard on the east side, where the HIV testing center was like at 42nd and Harvard on the west side. Dennis Neill: So were you volunteering there? Jeremy Simmons: The 42nd, yeah, the clinic. So it's like, yeah, you go just past 41st and Harvard, take the right end on the west side there, go into that little clinic next to Tulsa Cares. We answered the gay, I think they called it the gay hotline at that time, something to that effect. That went into the clinic because we were staffed. And so I did get a very limited amount of training, and sometimes I would take calls for that. So it was usually clinic calls, but the other line came in too. And honestly, I didn't even know. It wasn't until then that I realized that the clinic was not a part, I knew that it was separate from Tulsa Cares. It wasn't just in a separate building, but it wasn't until then, later, I think it wasn't until 96 that I even really knew that there was an LGBT group that was in the space. Dennis Neill: Walk me through your early work history from the time you left college through the early years. Jeremy Simmons: Okay. Well, I did a lot of this and that. There wasn't a lot that was super interesting. When I was a teenager, I worked for my grandpa. He had a garage in Ramona, and so I did that for a while. But just surface stuff like pumping gas and 10 �bringing people parts, nothing too complicated. And then I got a job when I was, I think, 16 or 17, which sounds crazy now, but back then everybody just did that at Walmart in Bartlesville, and that was before Walmart became this massive sprawling show that it is today. So I did just miscellaneous stuff. I moved here, and I was doing Thrifty Car Rental which had their corporate headquarters here, and I think that they've been merged into Dollar, Avis, or some other group now, but they were a standalone car reservation place that was based in Tulsa for a long time, and I worked the reservation center for maybe a couple of years. And I was doing that while I was volunteering with OkEq. Dennis Neill: Is that when they relocated what is now Legacy Towers? Jeremy Simmons: Right, around 31st and Yale. And that was kind of interesting because I got to talk to people from all over the world. But it ran its course too. It was never like a permanent thing. And so then, in 96, I was volunteering with the Equality Center, not thinking about it, and they offered me a job, which kind of surprised me. I don't really know why. I think so and again, I just, , I grew up in a pretty small town and I come from pretty conservative background, and so I think people were like: you have to work and own your own business and and make yourself successful that way, or you have to go and work for a big company and make a lot of money. There's the concept of, I don't know, being a social service provider, , or an educator, or something like that it just wasn't really on my radar, which is weird because I was volunteering. So on the one hand, it was right because I was taking my time to help for free, so I had that in my nature. But then also I was like, oh, this isn't something people can do for a living, right, but it offered about the same pay as I was making Thrifty and I was like, yeah, fuck it. So it was kind of a lark, honestly, to start working at OkEq. Dennis Neill: Who actually hired you? Jeremy Simmons: Claudette Peterson. Dennis Neill: She was head of the testing program? Jeremy Simmons: Yes, right. Dennis Neill: Who was it before then? Jeremy Simmons: His first name was Jason, so Jason was doing the position that I filled. I don't know who was in charge before Claudette. Dennis Neill: I think it might have been Roger Morris. Jeremy Simmons: Yeah, that name is not familiar to me. Dennis Neill: Walk us through a little bit about your involvement there and then the transition process with regard to the testing clinic, as you recall, and the staffing changes that you recall. Jeremy Simmons: Sure, so it was also kind of interesting because I thought, because it's a medical job, and I thought, well, you have to be certified medically, but 11 �the state was doing finger stick testing. They were just doing a little finger stick, taking a little bit of blood and putting on a blotter card. Didn't have to be a phlebotomist, didn't have to be a nurse, didn't have to be anything. They trained you how to do that and it was surprisingly easy, and so I think that a lot of people were terrified coming in and so just making it feel normal and being nice to people was the biggest part of the job. That was the most important thing by far, and we had, I think, four employees at the time and that would shift quite a bit based off of state funding. When the state contracts would change, like the positions would come and go. It felt a little chaotic and it did for a long time, honestly, and it's a challenge for a lot of nonprofits, even as they get bigger. If the government funding is such a big chunk and then their priorities shift, then it's like, well, you have to be more of a counselor now, or you have to be more medical now, or you have to do group sessions now, and so you just kind of have to roll with whatever the grant says or get replaced. Fortunately they were pretty good…the state and OkEq and then later HOPE separately, were all pretty good about doing the trainings that were necessary because a lot of them weren't that complicated. They always kept it to where less medical or non-medical staff, non-counseling staff could do the jobs, because it just wouldn't have been an affordable otherwise, because we always needed a lot of free volunteers and low-paid staff or it just wouldn't have worked. Dennis Neill: When you did the finger stick at that time, was that still the requirement to send it off and wait two weeks. Jeremy Simmons: Right. Dennis Neill: What was your experience with that? Knowing folks were coming in getting tested. Did all of them, or a majority of them, come back and the experience you had when you were having to deliver a positive result? I mean, was there hope at that period of time? Jeremy Simmons: Not really. It was really really rough. It was hard getting people to come in, but if they came in they usually came back for their results. So if they were committed. We had something like 75- 80 percent return rate, which I always thought, oh, that's just so, so many people aren't getting their results. But at a lot of testing sites it was like 60 percent or less. So we actually had a good follow-up rate. I think a part of that was just being so openly gay-friendly and non-judgmental about drug use and sex workers and all the other things that people might get worked up about. We did have a lot of people come back in. It was quite, I remember, being from experiencing from the other side- like waiting for 10 to 14 days to get a result back was felt very stressful. While protease inhibitors came out in the 90s, their use and full understanding wasn't, wasn't in place yet. It wasn't until the early 2000s where that started to kind of shift. It took a little bit longer to get it fully ingrained- where we can have these long-term undetectable status kind of thing, a different ballgame. So then there really wasn't a lot that you could do. Getting tested really was more about hoping that you were negative,and then if you found out that you had HIV, then it was a little bit more about when am I going to need hospice care? How am I gonna live a fulfilling life for 20 years? It was more about okay, at a certain point this is going to catch up with me. 12 �Dennis Neill: The folks that did test positive, did you all have a referral list of doctors and counselors that you could provide to help them on their path? Jeremy Simmons: Sort of. There were always people providing services here, but not a lot, and it if you didn't have the right health insurance, it could be very difficult to get into the right people. I remember early on there was a guy named Jeffrey BealI'm sure you remember Dr. Beal- who was like I'm gonna make a clinic that focuses on HIV care and does a good job of it and it's gay, affirming and doesn't matter if people do some drugs or have hep C to or any that like. But a lot of places wouldn't take anybody with HIV. Or if they would, they wouldn't take any other problems, like if you had hep C at the same time or if you couldn't pass a drug test or if you didn't have good insurance or any number of things, because it was already kind of a stretch for them to deal with HIV. So we had some resources. They were few and far between and some of the ones that did it, like Dr. Beal, could quickly get booked up. So, yes, technically, there were resources, but for many people if you lived outside of Tulsa, if you didn't have health insurance, if you didn't have disposable income, if you had a comorbidity, you weren't really going to get care or very good care. Dennis Neill: In addition to Dr. Beal, did you work closely with Ted, his partner, who was providing counseling services. Jeremy Simmons: Fortunately, most of our test results were negative. When we would get a positive test result, people handled that wildly differently. That case where you just felt like, wow, this is gonna be a really tough case, both for you emotionally as well. Sure. So there are some people who like, under underneath it all, have a have a lot of cynicism or cynicism or optimism about life, and so this was definitely a job that taught me a lot about that. Because some people who have really terrible circumstances already and then we're getting HIV positive result, we're like, well, this is a hassle, we're gonna navigate it as best we can. And then some people- it was just all they could think about was how they were going to die. it was very clear, they were like, oh, and also some people wouldn't go into care because then they couldn't let anybody know is how they felt. Even if they had health insurance and even if they lived in Tulsa and had disposable income and didn't have a comorbidity, they might have been so closeted about their sexuality and in some cases, even if they were openly gay and had everything going for them, they felt like they could not let anyone know they had HIV or they would be shunned at the bar or they might be kicked out of an apartment or lose access to a kid or lose a job, which are things that definitely did happen to people. Not extremely often, but regularly, so the fear of them happening was much bigger than the actuality, but they were things that regularly occurred and so it made it made it kind of difficult. Trying to get people into counseling was always great. Some people would spiral and just party and not go to the doctor and their health conditions and overall life would get much, much worse. So not suicide by direct action, but definitely like, well, if I have five more years, I'm just going to enjoy it. 13 �Dennis Neill: How would you compare the percent, you said, fortunately, it was quite low on the positive side in the 90s. How does that compare with today, would you say, the more recent pattern? Jeremy Simmons: It's definitely shifted way down. There was a lot of things happening. It's just, it's a very different, from a public health perspective, communicable disease perspective, it's a very different game now. So back then, there weren't great treatments, like you could get on AZT and maybe combine that with something else, maybe get off and on AZT. There were different things that you could do. And it was sort of the chemotherapy approach. We're just like, hey, we're going to bombard your system with a bunch of toxicity that's going to kill the HIV more than it kills your healthy tissue, but it's definitely going to kill your healthy tissue. So you're going to get sick at a certain point if you stay on AZT or any of these other antivirals at high doses enough to actually help you. It was kind of a gamble. People had to just do their best with it. Now, not only are people living longer, but their health outcomes are much better and they're much less likely to transmit. So we had a lot of people who would get very sick from HIV or very sick from the medications or some of both and try and balance that back and forth. But meanwhile, they were often having a high viral load or a moderate viral load. And so their long-term health outcomes were never going to be great and they were highly infectious to other people. While not everybody fully understood that at the time, enough people understood it. You were shunned if you had HIV was often the case, but not by everyone. It didn't bother me, because I'm in the office around it all the time. But I knew that I was not the norm. There was so much fear among so many gay men that they might get it too. And even if you weren't worried about directly having sexual or blood contact with somebody, I just think a lot of, a lot of gay men looked at other gay men as, oh, well, they're going to get sick soon, sooner rather than later, , and they are potentially infectious. So we have to be more careful around them. There was, even amongst ourselves, I think there was a lot of people, there was a lot of, I think, serosorting is a term I've heard, where it was like there were groups of HIV positive men within gay men that were still, that would still hang out and have community. Which is why places like we talked about earlier, like Our House, were much more relevant at that time. But it's such a different thing now. We would often get 5% or higher HIV rates. Still over 90% of our test results were coming back negative pretty regularly. That would fluctuate a little bit month to month or year to year. But oh, when you looked at year long stretches and multi-year long stretches, it was pretty consistently under 10%, sometimes less than 5%. Now, as hope evolved and even got bigger and started testing more people, like sometimes the positivity rate would be less than 3%, less than 2%. You see a lot less of it. And the biggest part of that is the viral load being much more manageable means that people aren't going to accidentally give it to other people. 14 �Dennis Neill: I know there was an effort at one point in time to really reach out to the African American community with regard to testing. There was actually an organization that partnered with testing to reach out to the African American community. Were you part of that effort? Do you remember the special grants I think that organization received? Jeremy Simmons: I partnered with them. So there was, Derek Davis was very involved, Donald Rose. And this is that thing about human memory. Tall guy, what was his name? Dennis Neill: FUSO [Friends in Unity Social Organization] was the name. Jeremy Simmons: The interesting thing is we just always called it FUSO. They never spelled it out, so like that was the incorporated name. And they at one point they- Renfro was also a guy who was very active with them and I worked with [R.F.] Renfro and then he died, which was one of the…sorry, I'm usually very nonemotional these things, but every now and then he was a very sweet person and not that…that sounds like a shitty thing to say, like no one deserves to die from something so painful. He was involved with this group. He was so sweet and he was so bright and was so healthy and then, like a year, he was gone. Sorry, that's one of the ones that's always still really hard for me to talk about. Dennis Neill: He was not only part of that organization but a close friend as well? Jeremy Simmons: He was a friend, yes, and I knew him a lot better than many of the others and worked with him. It was very surreal, I think, when it came to the clients and I knew people in real life who had HIV too. I just had enough of a wall built up where I could still be engaged with then and care about them. I think that the grant, the process kind of fell away. He was a guiding force behind it, Derek [Davis] was very engaged, I think, Donald, and was as well…and I'm- I'm sorry I'm blanking on that, still blanking on the guy. I can see his face and he's a very tall and he would come up here once in a while. The way I understand it, it's just a lot of those grants, but a lot of those things fluctuate, and so sometimes too- I'm trying to say this politically correct- sometimes the funding sources change so radically that it it it becomes apparent that either someone doesn't know what the fuck they're doing or they're intentionally sabotaging the programs , and it can be hard to tell, because if we're talking about stuff that can start at the federal level and can have lots of intermediaries. For example, when we we formed HOPE as a separate breakaway, in part because state legislators were going after LGBT organizations and OkEq wasn't 100% doing something right on the financials and it was something that a lot of nonprofits would do- shell games with money, but it was also something that if someone wanted to pull the funds, they could do it right. While it was something that a lot of people did and it wasn't a problem, when you live in a place like Oklahoma, when someone goes on the warpath against you, it's just like okay. But even when we did everything we were supposed to do and became a health organization that focused on gay services instead of a gay organization, so we wouldn't get as much grief- the CDC cut funding to the whole state for all HIV programs because the state was just fucking things up so much. 15 �There's a lot of at state and federal levels and I think that I don't want to speak too much for a few. Because I knew them well and I love Renfro and I still keep up a little bit with Derek and Donald…I don't know all of the details there- they were there and it was great to see them being there. And when we phased out of the 42nd office, we moved over and had two or three offices were kind of designated to the HOPE wing or that. That's not what they called it then. They called it just something else simple like the HIV Testing Clinic or the HIV Services or something more generic like that. And then FUSO had a small office in the Equality Center on Brookside. Briefly. Dennis Neill: Talk a little bit more about that transition from 1998 when it became its own nonprofit. How did that whole process, and then when you felt like the ship was getting righted, as far as the relationship with the funders like the state and so on. And the various locations that you've experienced in HOPE testing. Jeremy Simmons: So, as I mentioned, we had some state funders come to us and said, hey, the state is going after anything that's too drug-friendly, anything that's too gay-friendly, and they're not going to give you money next year, probably. If you stay here, they also might audit you and they might end - was happening to an Oklahoma City agency that got shut down right after that. So, I felt like that was pretty sage advice. Dennis Neill: Do you remember the name of the Oklahoma City organization? They started something called the AIDS Support Program. Jeremy Simmons: It was something that hadn't been around forever and then went away. I can't remember it. And they had, because they were a part of an sort of an LGBT organization, someone there, an employee, had promoted some kind of material from NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association. And that was just like the grossest, dumbest thing, They were very, like at their core, that group, it's kind of like when you talk to certain people, there's like the public pitch, but at their core, they were very much about grooming and having sex with very young, under 18 people. That was a core part of that NAMBLA group. So it's like, you don't touch them. You don't have to listen to their pitch too much and you kind of dig into what's like what's going on. That's what did them in. I don't even know that they were necessarily promoting something that would have been child molesting oriented. They just did something with that group. At the time, I remember having this conversation with Nancy McDonald and I was kind of against her, but then as I looked back on it, because I wanted to do a leather S&M focused HIV group and just call it what it was. And she was like, no, that's not smart. And I was like, well, okay. That would not have been good. There's just certain things you can't do here or you're gonna get on somebody's radar. That's how it was in the nineties. I think this was actually before we split away from OkEq. I don't remember exactly. I just remember she was one of the ones and I didn't know her very well and I always liked her and respected her, but we, she was very, very cautious compared to what I wanted to do. In retrospect though, I get it. It's one of those things where I was like, I'm happy to say that I would have made the wrong decision on that call. 16 �There’s just certain things you just couldn't do without raising too many red flags and then the next thing , and they're going to find a way. First they'll audit you and then if you're not doing everything right, which many nonprofits weren't in the eighties and nineties, when you really look into it… like we were on a reimbursement contract, not a grant saying we could spend whatever. So we had to use the money and then get reimbursed. If you didn't do it in just the right way, if you did it and people would be like, oh well, but we have to pay the lights and so we're gonna do this with that, then we'll catch up and pay that. At the end of the year, would it all work out? Sure. But you can't, when you're dealing with the Feds in general or when you're dealing with hostile state-level people, you can't shell game with the money at all. Or you can maybe for a year or five years or ten years, like you can for a while. But at some point they're gonna catch you and be like, no, no, you didn't do this exactly right according to this contract. And so now we're gonna pull all your funds and mark you as someone who can't be funded again. Dennis Neill: So in the current day is the HOPE deal where it's a reimbursement type of process as opposed to…. Jeremy Simmons: as opposed to a straight grant? Yep. So that HIV money, ever since I've been involved since 96, whether it was for anybody, like OkEq. HOPE, Tulsa Cares, anybody, whether it's CDC-based, HRSA-based, this is what you do. They'll sometimes make exceptions if you can deal with them directly federally. So there are some exceptions. But most people get reimbursed through the state as an intermediary. And the state's like, you have to do all these things. You have to show us that you've paid for it, and then we'll reimburse you. If you get really lucky, even if you're doing everything right, you're jumping through all the hoops, and you're spending all the money exactly right, and going to all that work, something like COVID will come along. They just won't pay you for five months. Doing that work can be really tough on the people at the top trying to figure out the money. It is challenging for everybody. It always cracks me up when people want to start nonprofits. And they're like, well, we'll get government money. And I'm like, no. You have to have so much liability insurance before certain government agencies will even want to touch you. And that's cost prohibitive to a lot of places. It's like there's just all these big things you have to have in place. And most of them now require annual audits. And if not annual, you will, at least every second or third year, have a serious, deep audit. You have to have all your time ducks in a row, because even trying to do the right thing. We got better as we split away, we were like, OK, we're going to be more legit about money. We still made mistakes. We got better over time. There's always gray areas. , they can come in and be like, well, you're not separating the gloves that you bought from the state health department money from the gloves you're buying for this. And so now you're going to have to pay us back for these gloves, because we can't prove by a visual check that you're the blah, blah, blah. 17 �But we're using all the free gloves you give us, and then we're spending our own money buying other gloves on top of that. Does that not show you that we're using all of the gloves? Anyway, any state or federal agency, if they want to cause problems for you, they can come in and say, oh, well, you didn't do this exactly right. And sometimes it's not even in the contract, which is the most frustrating. , when it's like, OK, we did everything according to the contract. I'm like, well, but this is still an expectation. Dennis Neill: Did you say it was 96 when you first started with the testing? Do you recall what month you started with testing? Jeremy Simmons: I became an employee in the summer. I believe it was July 1st. Because at that point, the state's contract, their annual calendar started something in the summer, June 1st, July 1st, August 1st, something like that. Dennis Neill: And was it HOPE at that point in time? Jeremy Simmons: It was. Dennis Neill: Can you tell us what it was and how that transitioned? Jeremy Simmons: So when we were doing it at first, while Claudette was still here, when we would answer the phone, I would just say it was something very generic but plain, like HIV Testing Clinic, or something really just direct. I don't remember what it was that we said. I don't think anybody was too uptight about it at the time. But we weren't like, thanks for calling the Equality Center, or thanks for calling OkEq, or thanks for calling whatever. It wasn't about branding or anything. It was just like, you've called. Because in part, that building we were in was separate, and it was literally only for… When the people came in for the gay hotline, it rang on a different line. So we needed to answer that as like something, Oklahoma gay hotline, or something. We might have used OkEq as part of that, or TOHR. For a long time. It wasn't until it was not until probably mid-97 to late 97 that I think, we started getting warnings that the state was gonna be auditing people that weren't doing things right. The state was coming for gay dollars. At a certain point before we left, we were like, okay, we need to differentiate ourselves. To be perfectly honest, many of us that were doing the actual work were like, oh yeah, we're gonna have to become a separate financial institution, because this thing where- and it didn't happen all the time, but occasionally we wouldn't get paid or we would have to sit on mileage reimbursements and we weren't making a lot of money. And that's the one sure way to piss your employees off and be like, hey, we actually have to do this stuff with the money instead. So your paychecks gonna be next week, or we're gonna give you a paycheck but you need to sit on it for eight more days, or whatever. And we started calling ourselves HOPE right before we left, but I don't remember when. Dennis Neill: Do you know how that name came about or who created… 18 �Jeremy Simmons: That's a good question, because and- and I looked back- when we did a history project thing and I was like I think I incorporated us both times and Ithere's three people that incorporated HOPE. It was originally HIV outreach, prevention education incorporated and then about a year and a half later we changed it to health outreach, prevention, education. And I remember much more vividly the second conversation because there was this huge debate about whether we were going to be an HIV specific organization or not and branch out into Hep C services and etc. At the beginning I don't recall, but I and Christy Frisbee and Johnny Eilert's were the three people that incorporated the organization as HIV Outreach. So I was involved. I was like oh, yeah, that's my signature, so it is interesting what you kind of remember and kind of don't. But I don't remember a lot of conversation about it. I think for me at the beginning part I was like this was also the 90s, was a different time and I was much younger and I think at the time I was like branding, shmanding, Now I have much, I have much more appreciation for it, but at the time I was like oh, yeah, sure, yeah, we'll call it the this. It was like we have to keep the services going and if we don't, I think if we don't break away, they're gonna come after OkEq, sorry, TOHR. It's hard for me to use that name for some reason, even though I used it, and so the funny thing is technically I was an employee of TOHR . I was paid from Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights, so I saw that name all the time. It's just merged, now OkEq. There was definitely a desperation. There was a lot of board discussion and some of it got quite heated because a lot of people felt like no, no, no, this is just blustering, which I don't think was true, but also I get it. It's like sure somebody, some random people- the state- say this and they're like: have them come to the meeting. No, that's not how it works. They're telling us this as a favor because they like us and they want the program to keep going, and they're seeing what's happening in Oklahoma City and it's duh, it's like Tulsa's gonna be next. That's what a lot of times the state people do. They start in Oklahoma City and then, if they have enough steam and need more attention or whatever, then they're just like: oh yeah, let's go after those guys in Tulsa and Lawton and Bartlesville, wherever else. Once we finally agreed to split apart, we stayed at the old building for a while and then we ended up getting another building space that was next door to Tulsa Cares again, and that was on Admiral, just a little bit east of Harvard. Dennis Neill: You were in the same structure? Jeremy Simmons: Right. For many years they had their main building and then there was a small building next door that was separated and we were there. They originally started off the model that they had when at the 42nd and Harvard complex, where they were like we're gonna be a home for a dozen organizations or more, so like the Names Project had like a, or Shanti had like a little teeny, tiny office, baby office there for a little bit. And then who else? There were other groups that had spaces there and we were one of them. We were definitely the second largest because of our staffing size and our funding capacities. RAIN [Regional AIDS 19 �Interfaith Network] was there for a little bit before they had their own thing. So it was supposed to be sort of like a coalition space. But pretty quickly, it became obvious that Tulsa Cares was getting the bulk of the money and that HOPE was getting another big chunk of money and everybody else was like 10% or less of what we were. The staffing and the client needs were overwhelmingly Tulsa Cares and secondarily HOPE. Over time, everything else, a lot of the other smaller organizations kind of merged into Tulsa Cares or finally moved out and got their own spaces. We were there for a while. Dennis Neill: Can you remember the street address? Jeremy Simmons: I think it's 3540 East Admiral Street. It's the Admiral that's north. I can see it always and there's a big church that was on the other side of the street and the building's still there and it looks almost identical to how it looked. I'm not sure if it's even being used right now. Blue and white. Tulsa Cares also started doing group meals at that time. IT started kind of changing what they were a little bit, I think. It was still good for us to have a separate space because people were just so terrified still of getting tested and I think they wanted like the least possible human interaction, the most private parking lot just as possible. We were there for three years to five years. I know that's a very broad term. I don't know exactly how long we were there. Then Tulsa Cares just kept growing and growing and growing and we were slowly growing and we were definitely, so we became the last two. All the other places weren't there anymore. And at a certain point Tulsa Cares was like, hey, we need to have a pantry and we need to expand these food services and we just cannot do this without a lot of extra physical space so you guys are going to need to go. And that was kind of debated and I think my director at the time thought that it wasn't going to happen and it ended up happening though. Christy Fresbee and I were the only two people that were incorporators on both times that we did the name change. We needed space, we had a lot of money for staffing and medical services but we were having a really hard time getting money for a facility and that's just a much, rent or owning is just its own thing. And Community of Hope on 25th and Yale was kind enough to let us stay there for like a year and a half to two years as a temporary transitional space. Then we moved, 3540 might be the 31st Street location. Then we moved to 31st Street which I think was a 3540 location. So that was on 31st a little bit east of Harvard. And we were there for about a decade. That was our longest location. Then we moved to a shopping center for a year and a half around 51st and Harvard and then Hope bought its final location that it owns now that's closer to 51st and Yale. Dennis Neill: When did you decide to leave HOPE and what are you up to now? Jeremy Simmons: I love being at Starlight, I think, but there was a thing going around for volunteer requests from OkEq for Pride and I thought about doing it but I kind of enjoy taking a break from HOPE and being distanced from that and being in some of those same spaces people just walk up and expect me to do HOPE stuff and so I was like I mean I think I just need to be a little further away. 20 �Dennis Neill: I was thinking maybe the late 80s early 90s Starlight was a gay bar but I could be wrong about that. Jeremy Simmons: Forever before it was Starlight it was the Chatterbox which was definitely not a gay bar but yes back in the 80s and 90s remember how we talked earlier about there was this golden time for teenagers where you could be wherever there was an after-hours thing. One of the names was The Factory. It was called many different things and so I went there as a little teenager but you had to wait until 1:45 A.M. or 2:15 or whatever because they made money as a bar and then reopened back up and sold non-alcoholic beverages. So yes, that was definitely... In different incarnations, a more overtly gay space or a kind of gay friendly space. But many of the after-hours places were…It was kind of Wild West compared to what it's like now. There's so many liquor laws now and there's so many ABLE Commission and police…there's just so many guidelines and so many people watching what you do now. Back then it was just like, yeah, someone's coming out of the bathroom with coke on their face, who cares? There's this wild thinking of that. As a teenager, like having access to that world, it felt like when people say it wasn't Studio 54, but when I see stuff like that for Manhattan, I was just like I get that general vibe. I don't know how it happens, but there's like you pay off the cops or you stay off their radar long enough or something , and it's just like people were just like whatever, and so there was more of that at those places. It was more of that live and let live, yeah, kind of a thing. Even the straight people were like, whatever, everybody's doing their own thing Dennis Neill: Switching a little bit to more kind of the broader community you're in, your involvement, advocacy, social activities and particularly your board service with OkEq. Jeremy Simmons: There was a little bit of confusion and hostility when HOPE split away from OkEq. I think it was pretty minimal and it was understandable. It's like okay. There was a little brief period of detente, but I think within several months, definitely within a year, there was conversations about us doing testing on Saturdays at the Equality Center. So we pretty quickly moved past whatever that was, and and started doing regular services here, in part to sort of help- and I've always loved it here- but in part also to sort of seem at that bridge between HOPEand OkEq. I became a board member and I became a committee member. I don't know exactly what they called it, it was something like the rebranding committee, so it was for conversations around the name change and logo, and so I was just… I was on a committee of people, some some board members, but a lot of other just community members, and so I did that and really loved it. It was a lot of fun- and then got on the general board and then the executive committee of the board. Again, I'm terrible with years, but I was on the executive committee as we moved into this building. Dennis Neill: So we moved in 2007. Jeremy Simmons: Okay, I knew it was after the millennia, but I couldn't, but it's just like. That's definitely one of those. I have a hard time anchoring it to another event. 21 �When I was on the committee, we were still in that shopping center on the 41st Street. Dennis Neill: You probably had what- Mark Bonney and Laura BelmonteJeremy Simmons: Yep, yep, I was much more involved with Laura because she was on. …She was very involved. Mark, I believe, was the president, but she was on the committee that brought me in, so I was much more involved with her, and then she became president at a certain point, yeah, and so I always remember being much more involved with her and, while she's on a separate board somewhat, I was more involved with Sue Welch occasionally for other things. I still, even though I'm with on the board, I'm still not a hundred percent sure what the different duties are between the two, like the, the two boards, just to be honest with…the Board of Trustees. I get it in general, but especially as we moved into the building, there was a lot of oh, we want to do this, we want to do that, and there was just like there was….It was very interesting trying to sort of figure all that out still is, because it's like everybody has so many good intentions and so many opinions and so many preferences, right, and so it's hard coordinating that. I- and it's something that I learned a lot from here- and I was like, okay, and I actually heard someone else say this from another LGBT group in another city- and they're like, well, but it's different, not that other marginalized communities or individual communities don't have problems also, but like a lot of immigrant families, a lot of black Americans, a lot of indigenous Americans….A lot of groups are raised within their own communities. So there are, generally speaking, a lot more acceptable norms and like expectations of what is gonna happen, whereas we come from every larger and smaller community. So I think it makes it even harder to get a lot of consensus. We have men and women and transgender people, we have all races, all regions, all socio-economic background, , and so there's all religions. There's not like an overarching norm, aside from maybe being an American, which is a million different things. I think it's just, I think it's common at LGBT centers, to make it harder to get true consensus because there's just so many different drives. Dennis Neill: HOPE in a way, it's certainly been on the forefront of advocacy with its education and outreach, so you've been part of that for decades. Are there other aspects of our community where you felt like you've taken on an advocacy role or in the future, you want to get more involved as you transition and any thoughts about our community at large as its transitioned over the years, the good and the bad. Jeremy Simmons: Oh, that's a really big one. I've worked with several different groups. I worked with the American Red Cross doing HIV education and education around blood-borne pathogens, and it was interesting working within a large bureaucratic, large system and trying to sort of make it be not scared of HIV, to be more open to LGBT. That's not my strength is. I enjoy doing it, but I think I need more immediate results. So I've always dealt with probably smaller groups. I volunteered for a while off and on with the Nightingale Theater and that was fun before the theater was here. There's a lot of small venues here in Tulsa, but before there was a theater here, Nightingale is one of those few spaces where you could do some really sexually 22 �explicit material, thematically or overtly, like, and so they did like a gay spin on the Dukes of Hazzard, stuff like that- that just there wasn't a place for it. Now we have an option here as well, which is great. So that was fun. I was one of the founding board members with the Equality Network, which picked up some steam but then eventually merged with Cimarron Alliance to become Freedom Oklahoma. I think it might have been called something else at first, but now it's Freedom Oklahoma, I believe. I've not kept up with them super well. They invited us to come and I spoke to some state senators about HIV laws and changing them, and that feels good in the moment. It's interesting to do. But also it's like four senators showed up- what I mean, and so- and they were mostly women from progressive women from Oklahoma City who were gonna vote with us anyway. Sometimes at the state level, it even it feels it can feel a little daunting. But because of that, I think that groups like OkEq and Freedom Oklahoma need to continue the pressure because- and sometimes it's just luck, right, sometimes things just line up in ways you can't expect, like we got law enforcement to to get on board with decriminalizing needles to a degree, and that's not the group that I would have thought would have supported us, but they're the groups getting stuck when they do frisking right. Jeremy Simmons: Sometimes something comes from a place , and so it's like, oh, legislators will listen to them, in conjunction with other community groups and public health people, to to maybe decriminalize this. So we understand it's like: no, we need cleaner needles so that everyone, not just the people that are using, but everybodyhas fewer blood-borne pathogens that they have to worry about. So there definitely needs to keep happening. That's harder for me to be engaged with personally. As I've gotten older, as I've lived and been an American, America has gotten overwhelmingly more gay-friendly and Oklahoma has not. There's pockets, in Tulsa and Oklahoma City that are way more gay-friendly. But I just think everybody understands that those are little isolated oases. Dennis Neill: Now that you're kind of free from HOPE, that stability, but also that confinement of being in that one job, do you still feel like you're anchored in Tulsa, or are you anxious to experiment, go other places? Jeremy Simmons: I'm open to see where the future takes me. Some friends of mine moved to Spain recently, and they're making a big pitch for me to come to Spain with them. Which sounds kind of ridiculous, but then also I'm like, there's certain skills like bartending that are kind of universal. It's easier to be a bartender in places like Spain than it is to be a phlebotomist. So, maybe. We'll see. I really like being here, though. I love... when I came here, I just knew almost no one. I had tons of casual acquaintances at first. And building up all these deep friendships and seeing these nonprofits and these cool, unique little businesses thrive here, and being able to even just support them a little bit in some way, has been really lovely. I really love Tulsa. So, I'm very open to anything now. I don't feel... So, forever, I did feel like... And I didn't fully understand this until I left, but I felt like I had to stay. 23 �And I don't really know why, because everybody else left a long time ago from the 90s, but I felt like I had to keep HOPE going. I personally had to make sure that HOPE was going, which is dumb. Everybody eventually ages out. Everybody dies, if nothing else. And then everybody gets tired. Like, when you're helping people... I was a full-time employee for 24 years. And I loved it for a lot of that. And then, towards the end, I didn't love it anymore. I think sometimes when you're helping people, you have to make a choice to go do something else that's more fun or go do something else that makes more money for a while. I'm not sure. I'm sure there are the Mother Teresa types that can do it indefinitely. But I'm like, I need to... so, whatever I'm doing in the future, for the latter part of my life, I need to get paid more per hour than what I was at HOPE, or having more fun than what I was getting at HOPE towards the end. It has to be at least one of those two things. Preferably both. Everybody wants that job, and that's hard to find. But I did feel very anchored to HOPE. I was just like, we are one and the same. To the point that I'm not sure it was super healthy, honestly. Dennis Neill: Well, you provide us with a valuable history about HOPE, AIDS, and your engagement. Are there any final comments you want to make as we bring the interview to conclusion? Jeremy Simmons: While the current federal administration is abysmal, I think this is some dying last gasps of some outmoded thinking. And so while things feel very dark right now, I think things are about to get much better in the next several years. And here, and everywhere else in the United States. And I really appreciate everybody who's been involved with HOPE, and OkEq, and all the other groups. Tulsa Cares, Our House, all the other LGBT groups, all the other HIV and Hep C and harm reduction groups like SHOTS. I just love that I know so many people that are doing so much great work. And it keeps me... While I personally need a break from it, I love getting on social media. I love showing up to the Equality Center. I love going to a gala randomly somewhere and seeing all of the support that Tulsa still has to give. So, I think the future's going to be great. And I appreciate y'all taking some time with me. And I appreciate everybody who's interested enough in this to listen to it. And just keep reminding yourself that even though things look very... feel very heavy right now, this is temporary. It will shift back. Dennis Neill: Jeremy, thank you so much. This is an invaluable interview. And we look forward to your continued advocacy in our community. Thank you very much. Jeremy Simmons: Thank you. 24 � 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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] Jeremy Simmons Interview Description An account of the resource Jeremy Simmons shares his journey of self-discovery and advocacy within the LGBTQ+ community. Growing up in a conservative, religious environment, he navigated the complexities of his sexual identity while facing societal expectations and bullying. His experiences shaped his commitment to community engagement and HIV awareness, leading his long-time involvement first as a volunteer and then 30 years as an HIV educator and tester with Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights and then HOPE. Jeremy reflects on the challenges of nonprofit management and expresses hope for the future of the LGBTQ+ community, emphasizing the importance of continued advocacy and support. Subject The topic of the resource Jeremy Simmons Oral History Project Interview from January 21, 2026 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jeremy Simmons, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource January 21, 2026 2026 AIDS/HIV AIDS/HIV education Dennis Neill Dennis R. Neill HIV HIV Education HIV Outreach Education Program HIV Outreach Education Program (HOPE) HIV/AIDs HIV/AIDs outreach HOPE interview Jeremy Simmons 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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] Trish Spurgin Interview Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 18, 2005 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Laura Belmonte on November 18, 2005. Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research. Trish was born in Tulsa in 1941. [Editor’s note – full name was Agnes Patricia “Trish” Spurgin. She passed away in Tulsa on June 27, 2021.] She attended Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio. In 1959, she experienced her first same- sex relationship while in college. She returned to Tulsa and attended the University of Tulsa. Trish worked in accounting and collections. Regarding the Tulsa lesbian scene, she discussed the bar life, social activities and the frequent police harassment. She discussed her interactions with her gay brother and observations about lesbians and gay men and her exposure to Tulsa Oklahomans for Equality. Subject The topic of the resource Trish Spurgin Oral History Interview from November 18, 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Trish Spurgin, Laura Belmonte, Jensen Bridges, Matthew D. Williams, Dennis Neill 2005 Agnes Patricia "Trish" Spurgin Agnes Patricia Spurgin Agnes Patricia Trish Spurgin available at Center Dennis Neill Dennis R. Neill interview Jensen Bridges Laura A. Belmonte Laura Belmonte lesbian Matthew D. Williams Matthew Williams OKEQ Oral History Project oral history oral history interview Oral History Project oral history transcript police harassment TOHR transcript Trish Spurgin TU Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights (TOHR) University of Tulsa video Western College for Women in Oxford 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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] Jonathan Stanley Interview Subject The topic of the resource Jonathan Stanley Oral History Project Interview from July 14, 2020 Description An account of the resource Video recording and transcript of oral history interview with Morgan Allen and Fraser Kaster on July 14, 2020. Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research. Jonathan discusses his experiences with the Tulsa gay scene and his involvement with Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jonathan Stanley, Morgan Allen, Fraser Kaster, Dennis Neill Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource July 14, 2020 2020 available at Center Fraser Kastner interview Jonathan Stanley Morgan Allen 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 Physical Media: Box 7, Folder 7 - Dr. Leisa Meyer Program Box 7, Folder 8 - Interviewees Materials, Original Series 2003-2007 Digital Media: 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. Video and Transcript available at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center for on-site research. 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