I Stand Corrected Not Pridefest, Key West Pride

 

By C.S Gilbert

 

Soon after last week’s column was filed, longtime Key Wester, Konk Life staffer and GLBT community leader Susan Kent pointed out a not-so-small detail I’d somehow missed. The annual GLBT summer celebration is not called Pridefest — and hasn’t been since 2012.

Oops.

 

 

After a somewhat turbulent but nonetheless triumphant history (more about that later), the celebration, born Pridefest in the early 1990s and produced by a small group called the Pride Alliance, was by 2012 produced by the Key West Business Guild, the nation’s oldest gay chamber of commerce.

 

 

Randy Detrick, a public relations professional, was selected to coordinate the almost-week long event. Detrick noticed that small cities and towns tended to host festivals, while the big cities simply preceded Pride with their names, as in New York Pride and San Francisco Pride, Kent explained, and “he wanted us to advertise and market with the big dogs.” Voila. Good bye, Pridefest; hello, Key West Pride.

 

 

Whatever the celebration is called, it started small in June of 1993 or 1994, as near as any of us can remember. The first year, a couple of dozen folks walked down the Duval St. sidewalk, reportedly because no one knew anything about getting a permit to use the street. Soon, of course, they wised up. But even in the beginning, Pridefest was more than just the parade. The major event, originally, was a fancy dinner with big-name entertainment — comedian/singer/songwriter Lynn Lavner is the one I remember best, possibly because I’d become a fan of hers when she performed for the Gay Activist Alliance in Morris County (aka GAAMC) in New Jersey.

 

 

After the new Gay and Lesbian Community Center, via Peter Arnow, I think, introduced the Pride Follies circa 1999, that major variety show at Tennessee Williams Theater on the college campus that replaced the banquet. From the beginning, though, as I recall, there was a street fair and some sort of a parade as well as Mr. and Miss Pride competitions. Ms Pride came later.

 

 

Frank Garner, still an active community member, was part of the original Pride Alliance; Kent and I were able to recall Jeanne Wright, as she was known back then (who just now returned to town), the late Rick Van Hout, his partner David Bernhardt, Jacqueline Harrington and the late City Commissioner Jeremy Anthony among the founders. Soon after came the late Bill Hazelton and Annaliese Mannix-Lachner.

 

 

But Garner was the magic-maker as coordinator of the parade from its beginnings. He was — and I mean this in the nicest way — a dictator. No one had to preregister; we just showed up and he, having plotted it all out in his head, told us where in the court house parking lot or out into Thomas Street to muster before step-off. No one was allowed to argue. The result was that the parade always stepped off precisely on time (wasn’t it 7 p.m. in those days?) and flowed smoothly out, finally, onto Duval. Garner eventually retired – “later that he really wanted to, I think,” Kent said. Parade coordinator for the past four years, she said, has been Matt Hon.

 

 

Producers of Pridefest changed, as well. The Pride Alliance turned the celebration over to the GLCC and dissolved. The GLCC produced several Pridefests, including the internationally lauded Sea-to-Shining-Sea Rainbow Flag in 2003, when Kent was president — weren’t Heather Carruthers and Gregg McGrady chairs? Help me, folks, to give credit where it’s due! Then the GLCC turned the festival over to the Business Guild and here we are: Key West Pride, a ritual celebration reflecting GLBT culture in the Southernmost City. Enjoy; may your week be full of rainbows.

 

 

That’s it for now! Gotta fly!

 

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