1 25 4 http://archives.frny.org/files/original/41a815a92a07e20c120e2ce7e14c1b24.pdf 7f566d76a5480c0b442c08600ca397da PDF Text Text Kenneth Majerus “It was a significant amount of work to get volunteers to do something as simple as breakfast bagels.” Kenneth Majerus moved to New York in 1984 from Bellechester, Minn., a small farming community of around 150 people. “It took me three months to accustom myself to it,” he says, “and after that, I knew this was the place for me to be.” Kenneth, 59, is Deputy Chief of Administration at the New York City Law Department at the City of New York and was president of Front Runners in both 1999 and 2000. He ran his first marathon at the Gay Games in 1994 in New York, which started at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. “Running New York City was when I learned I hated all that noise,” he says. Quentin Fottrell spoke to Kenneth on April 5, 2016 on the Upper West Side: FRNY: You came to New York in 1984. What was New York like back then? Kenneth: It was a lot dirtier then than it is now. I distinctly remember going down to Chelsea and people telling me not to get out of the car at that time. People were very kind without my even expecting that. I once parked my car in the Lower East Side packed full of everything I owned, locked it and left it overnight, and someone left me a note under my windshield saying, “Never do this again.” Before coming to New York, I attended the University of Minnesota in St. Paul and Minneapolis, studied for a year abroad in Germany, returned, and came out. I wasn’t quite fresh off the farm. When I ran my first New York City Marathon I realized the raucous nature of that marathon didn’t make it one of my favorites. The next time, I ran in the middle of the road, away from as many slapping hands as possible. I learned what it meant to hit the wall Gay Games Marathon and I did that in a big way. FRNY: When did you start to see changes? Kenneth: In the early nineties there was some kind of turnaround. FRNY: Why did you join the club? Kenneth: Two friends convinced me to run a marathon. We began running in December 1993. I th rd remember getting a bus at 5.30 in the morning to Central Park. I was living at 30 and 3 in a little studio apartment. FRNY: What was your platform running for President? Kenneth: I don’t think there was a platform. You needed to have a president, organization and a board. I had knee surgery and, since I wasn’t able to run, Patrick Barker said I should be president. Foolishly, I agreed. It was a lot of work. There were a lot fewer people in the club and there was a lot less money, and maybe volunteerism was different at that point. It was a significant amount of work to pull the races together and get volunteers to do something as simple as breakfast bagels. FRNY: Given those circumstances, what was your style as president? Trying to get people to do as many things as possible? Kenneth: I can distinctly remember Jim Gibb who was the president before Patrick Barker, and the difficulty he had in getting volunteers to keep things going. During his presidency, he put on the Pride Run, which is an incredible amount of work. So you spent a lot of time trying to corral people to get different things. Purely by chance there were some truly terrific people in the club who did a lot of volunteering. They came forward to aid me in making it happen. I just wanted people to have fun and get along —everyone — from runners to walkers to cyclists. I tried not to be in a clique. I also wanted the club to move forward, so I tried to forge consensus. FRNY: Do you care to name-check a few people now? �Kenneth: Lenore Beaky was one, she was terrific for me, and Ruth Gursky was really helpful. My friend TJ Storch, was tremendous, especially when it came to work on the Pride Run, Marty McElhiney and Gary Appruzzese, and all the work they did as race captains, Sue Foster and Michael Orzechowski. A lot of these people were particularly helpful in getting things going. And I know I’ve forgotten people. FRNY: When you became president in 1999, that would have been just before the new HIV treatments came out. Did you have fundraisers for HIV/Aids through Front Runners? Kenneth: I didn’t have so many friends who were suffering from Aids at that point in time. I had friends later who had problems. The new medications were out then. I had one friend in particular who often called them all rat poison. They were very hard on the body, but they helped them survive and I have a number of friends who are long-term survivors. FRNY: What were your happiest memories from your time as president? Kenneth: Talking Jen Aitchison into running for president the year after me in 2001 was a big one. I felt like I was a caretaker president, just keeping things moving along. We reached out to other gay clubs, to the wrestlers and we tried to do more with Fast and Fabulous (http://fastnfab.org/) and we tried to get some unifying events going. I wish there had been more but we got that going. FRNY: Fast and Fabulous? Kenneth: It’s a biking club. FRNY: It sounded like there was a lot of camaraderie among gay groups at that time. Kenneth: We were trying to foster camaraderie. I don’t think there was as much as what there might have been. We tried to get different events where they would begin to mingle with each other. FRNY: Why wasn’t there? Kenneth: People isolated into affinity groups. If you were a wrestler, you didn’t necessarily want to go out running. The bikers wanted to bike. The people who did crossover athletics tried to get the groups to join a bit more. The reasoning: Diversity is more exciting and gives people different opportunities to find a field or sport that they excel in. FRNY: What was your greatest challenge as president? Kenneth: Money was a huge challenge for us always: Getting enough money to put on the Gay Pride Run. There was a challenge with the foundation and trying to determine how some of that money could help people within the confines of the bylaws for the foundation. Being out as a running group was still a problem in much of the running community. We had some terrific supporters. [Former Front Runners president] Patrick Barker was tremendous with his contacts in Road Runners (http://www.nyrr.org/). Every year we helped at the finishing shoot at the marathon. We did the 24-mile water station. Stacy Creamer (http://www.centralparktc.org/2009/04/features/team-bio-stacy-creamer/) from the Central Park Track Club really helped. She stepped up. She absolutely thought [the Gay Pride Run] should be a points run. Some straight men didn’t want to be seen running in the Gay Pride Run. FRNY: You’re still a member? Kenneth: Yes, but I don’t run. I think that the club meant a lot to people. It was a visible organization. It helped a lot of people who needed some place to come to for support and for community. And I remember how difficult money was for us back in those years, and probably even much more difficult in the earlier years. FRNY: Were a lot of people not “out” in 1999? Kenneth: Absolutely, it changed over time. But in 1999, there were still a lot of people who did not want to be identified. There was still a struggle over the membership list and where that �could get published and who could get a hold of that, and even a struggle about whether we could take it into an electronic format. So, yes, there was still a significant amount of fear surrounding being in a gay-identified club. FRNY: Is that because people feared for their job? Or because people weren’t comfortable being gay and thought others would dislike them for it? Kenneth: All of the above. Absolutely people still feared for their job. I was out in 1999. I had been outed many years earlier than that. I didn’t necessarily fear for my job, but there was — and still is frankly — a fear for your job among a significant amount of people. FRNY: I feel remiss leaving that hanging there. You were outed at work? Kenneth: Yes, it was not my choice. Someone wrote a letter to my managing attorney. It was because of a hiring decision I had made and they disagreed with it and it became in their mind this “gay cabal.” FRNY: There is less protection. Kenneth: We’re seeing it in the news right now, Mississippi and North Carolina, and a whole fleet of states where that’s happening. FRNY: Was there any antipathy toward members who were more closeted or did other members just see it as a product of the time? Kenneth: There was a tremendous level of understanding as to people’s concerns and I think I thought I could help bridge that gap and just slowly and easily bring people along. I don’t remember if I was successful or not! I have a feeling I wasn’t. FRNY: What does the club mean to you today? Will you go back to being an active member? Kenneth: I was one of those people who started doing something different. I started swimming. I started doing deep water running. I did join the gay swimming club, New York Aquatics (http://www.tnya.org/). It was a little too competitive for me so I stopped going. I’m not sure what the club means to me right now. It’s there. I remember so many people and a lot of those people are still there. The running times were the same time I wanted to be in the pool. Gradually, I fell away from it. In the last five years, I had personal obligations that have taken up most of my time, and I haven’t been running. FRNY: And you were president during the Clinton years. Kenneth: I was out when I came here. Pretty wildly out. I had been out when I was in Minnesota. It was an extension of that when I came here. I never really felt the sting of homophobia. And if I did, being a farm boy, I just turned around and went to face it. I didn’t shy away from people’s comments or shouts. FRNY: You came from a small farming town. Kenneth: I wasn’t out in the community when I was growing up. After high school I left and went to college. I did a junior year abroad and went to Germany, which probably cemented something. By the time I came back, four months later I was out. I had a wonderful mentor at that time who challenged me and challenged my thinking and, frankly, wouldn’t hear of me staying the closet, and I didn’t want to. I fell in love and within three months came out to my family. FRNY: What was your proudest moment as a member of Front Runners? Kenneth: Probably driving everyone safely back and forth to Philadelphia, the first time I ever drove a van. We would always go to Washington D.C. for the cherry blossoms and go to Philly. I don’t know if it was my proudest moment, but it was a good one. FRNY: Finally, have you stayed in contact with many Front Runners? Kenneth: There are still people I talk with: A few people on Facebook and I still people running in the park, and we wave and chat a little bit, and say hello. �This interview has been edited for space and style. � 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 Oral Histories 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 Kenneth Majerus interview with Quentin Fottrell, 2016 April 5 Description An account of the resource Quentin Fottrell interviews Kenneth Majerus about Front Runners New York [LGBT running club], including her time as president in 1999 and 2000. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kenneth Majerus [interviewee] Quentin Fottrell [interviewer] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 April 5 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright FRNY Year:1990s Year:2000s Year:2010s http://archives.frny.org/files/original/a04e1bc730c1047e5f7e696ba3bc9447.pdf dc88533a8412c84efa2c5e67e109ac86 PDF Text Text Lenore Beaky “There were many fewer opportunities to live a healthy lifestyle. You had the bars and you had the running club.” Lenore Beaky joined Frontrunners in 1983 and was president in both 1989 and 1990, a time when the club had about 500 members, roughly 20% of which were women. After her father died, Lenore’s family moved to New York from Pennsylvania in 1960, and she has lived here ever since. Back then New York was a place of poets and folk singers, she remembers, at least in Washington Square Park. That was before the decline of the city in the 1970s and 1980s. After attending high school and college in Brooklyn, Lenore, 71, studied English (Victorian literature) at Columbia University. “It was always nice that you could get college credit to read novels.” Although she no longer runs, she practices yoga and Tai Chi. Lenore is retired from her job as a professor of English at La Guardia Community College at CUNY. She spoke to Quentin Fottrell at her home on the Upper West Side on March 20, 2016: FRNY: What was the club like back then? Lenore: The female membership has always been about 20%. We had fewer activities, but we had regular Sunday runs once a month and always the regular Saturday and Wednesday runs in Central Park. We lost both of our Wednesday and Saturday places in my first months and they were crisis events that had to be solved quickly. It’s a social club and that has always been a part of our club’s success. We lost both of those and we got them track. One of the really important things in my mind was what the rest of the world was like in New York and elsewhere, for that matter, for gay people. What was the context for men and women to join the club? How did they find out about us? Most of them went to The Center (https://gaycenter.org) to find out about us. There were many fewer opportunities to live a healthy lifestyle: You had the bars and you had the running club. FRNY: Nowadays, people join the club to broaden their social circle. But were there deeper reasons in 1989 and 1990? Lenore: The Aids crisis, people losing their friends and lovers and needing a place to go to, and being — I guess — in the beginnings of the coming out process. It would be interesting to know how many people came out as a result of joining the club. And what does being out mean? How out were you? FRNY: What was the platform you ran on for your first term? Lenore: I was the first person to run a contested election and also the first woman. The presidents before me were Steve Gerben and Richard Walker. I’m not certain anymore exactly what I said. I don’t think that looking at the statements of all the people running for president, they’re that different. They want to support the club in its activities. They want to support the club in its relationship to New York Roadrunners, but I probably didn’t think much about that before I became president, but the general idea was to make the club a welcoming place to come and make sure that, when they came, they stayed and came back. FRNY: What were your proudest moments during your two terms as president? Lenore: We had a financial crisis that broke as soon as I became president. I was informed that we had $500 in the bank. We gradually grew that while I was president to a budget of around $70,000. That’s not much compared to now. That might be the thing that I was proudest of, really leading us through that. I really communicated with the entire club. We had club-wide meetings. We used to have board meetings but also membership meetings every month. We created a budget committee to establish a firmer foundation. And we got through that. We really set ourselves up for the future. I used to refer to my six crises, which was a reference to Richard Nixon. Fortunately, I can only remember �four or five of them now. We came out of that without any repercussions and without any rancor. People really supported the club and it really brought us closer together. FRNY: How come there was so little money in the bank? Was it because it was a very difficult time financially for people? Lenore: It was probably a combination: Not enough money coming in and not controlling spending. Our various activities were expensive. Putting on track meets and trips and clothing: All of that cost money and you really have to know how to pay for it so it’s sustainable and I think, perhaps, we weren’t paying enough attention to that. FRNY: What was your style of leadership? Lenore: I’m a retired college professor. My style has always been collaborative, open and welcoming. I had two favorite activities as a president. Our mailbox used to be in the Village at the large post office at Houston and Varick. I would pick up the mail myself. We didn’t have a large committee structure. I didn’t do as much as people thought I did. I didn’t do everything. Steve Gerben did almost everything. I would go to this little coffee shop a block away and open the mail, and I loved doing that. I loved the presentations on Saturday morning. I could indulge my Professor Beaky persona. I think that came through with my style. FRNY: Why do you think that the female membership has stayed at around 20%? Lenore: It was one of my disappointments during my time as president: It didn’t decrease, but it didn’t change. The specific individuals did change. People get paired off and new people come in. As long as you can bring in new women, that’s alright. You have to keep trying to make sure that you are welcoming and make sure that the materials — the advertising — show women. I hope that it never happens that a woman comes to the club on a Saturday morning and sees no women. She’s not going to come back. I suspect that most other clubs struggle with this too. I don’t think we were the best in terms in women’s membership. There’s another issue that I wonder about: The emphasis on racing. What is the attention given to men and women who don’t run that fast? They don’t have a seven-minute, six-minute, five-minute mile. Before I started coming to the club. I called and I asked about a Sunday run. I said, “What’s the typical pace of a Saturday/Sunday run?” The person on the other end of the line said, “Seven- or eightminute miles.” I said, “I run nine-minute miles.” And there was silence on the other end to the line. I got the message. I didn’t come. That’s an issue. We have to give as much attention to the slower runners. FRNY: What made you go afterwards? Did improve your time or did you think, ‘To Hell with it! This is my club too.’ Lenore: I was preparing for my second marathon and I attended workshops at the 63rd Street Y, given by a runner called Arthur Lydiard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Lydiard). This was incredible, this guy was world famous. I met this woman and we were running in Riverside Park. I was doing the Avon Half. She said, “What’s the Avon Half?” I realized that I needed to be with other runners who knew what the Avon Half was. I started coming on Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings, as opposed to a smaller group who only ran eight-minute miles or faster. I will also mention Guy Zelenak (http://frny.org/omeka/exhibits/show/thematic-exhibitions/item/687) who made it his business to run with slower runners and watch over them until he saw that they had become part of the club. One time he ran with me because I was in the back of a pack. FRNY: How has the club has changed? Lenore: I’m an ex-runner. The last time I came was a Saturday in December and I did go to the dinner in January. The club is larger and has way more activities. You don’t have the Sunday run, but there’s a lot of attention to training. If you’re preparing for a marathon, there is a group that will work with you �at your pace. There are social activities on a Friday night. There was an issue with the Gay Pride Run in 1983 about whether we should we call it the Lesbian and Gay Pride Run. It was small. Road Runners helped us with it. It was distinctive and the total field was about 500 runners so Front Runners like me could win age group awards. Gradually it got swallowed up in the [New York] Road Runners calendar and, in fact, more than once it’s been a points’ race, which was very good for the club financially. FRNY: Can you tell me why you won an award in January and why you won it? Lenore: This was for the Brent Nicholson Earle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Nicholson_Earle) American Run for the End of Aids, or AREA, Award. He founded the award. He did a cross-country run in 1987 to raise money for Aids. Initially, it was given to the first male and female winner of the Pride Run. Then it became the award for someone who’d done something special for the club. I used to think of it as the Lifetime Achievement award for the Oscars. I was the first person to win that award when it became an award for special achievement. When I received it again last January I was surprised. I was the one who created the bagel brunch. I invented it one Saturday morning during my five-mile run in Central Park. They remembered the finances and that I had edited the newsletter and various other things, but also that I had been on this committee to evaluate, investigate the election of 2012, and the outcome of the election. The election had to be restaged and the board was confident that the resolution had been a good one and that the club was now in good standing again with confidence in its election procedures. There were certain changes made to the board bylaws as a result of our committee work. FRNY: Finally, what were some of your most fun memories as president? Lenore: There were the fundraisers, the parties, going to the clubs dancing, the March or Parade, Mickey Zacudo, who was my partner for a time. Mickey was the political conscience of the club and was always very militant about everything. There were other women at the time: Judy Spina, Connie Knapp, Debbie White, Anne Corey who were, particularly in the 1980s, part of the core of women members. It was a social network where you could go to the movies, and go away for different races and the Gay Games. The first Gay Games I went to was 1986, the second Gay Games. It was held in San Francisco and, in 1990, held in Vancouver. I got to meet members of other Front Runners clubs. They are all very special memories for me. This interview has been edited for space and style. � http://archives.frny.org/files/original/35edbd116d0755bf60a9aded30adde80.mp3 c5cd3302d1d6968ba5dce71096052d82 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 Oral Histories 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 Lenore Beaky interview with Quentin Fottrell, 2016 March 20 Description An account of the resource Quentin Fottrell interviews Lenore Beaky about Front Runners New York [LGBT running club], including her time as president in 1989 and 1990. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lenore Beaky [interviewee] Quentin Fottrell [interviewer] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 March 20 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright FRNY Year:1980s Year:1990s Year:2010s http://archives.frny.org/files/original/083be529d20eb034ecc972ce97220686.mp3 8b6c42aa1d891ad3c157e0b0a5de6b07 http://archives.frny.org/files/original/a61194dd3503ba3ab37536c452e268be.pdf 868d93b5d2de47f573b98cfa938753de PDF Text Text Marty King, Front Runners New York President, 1993 “Once you join Front Runners you are always a member.” Marty King was president of Front Runners New York in 1993. He met his partner Javier Guillen, in 1998, and they moved to Lima, Peru three years ago. Marty, a retired healthcare provider, is a former town crier of Provincetown, Mass., a position he held for 10 consecutive summers. He hopes to celebrate his 75th birthday in November by running the 2015 New York City Marathon. He has already run many marathons, including the Boston Marathon. Marty spoke to Quentin Fottrell at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York on June 15, 2015. FRNY: Hi Marty. Do you think the role of the club has changed since 1993 and, if so, how has it changed? Marty: Well, back in 1993, it certainly was the ‘post-painful’ part of the Aids crisis. We had a great sense of freedom about running, but we also had an obligation to people who were ill and a few members of Front Runners New York as well as Front Runners International were ill at the time. We had a commitment to purpose – running, and we all knew it was healthy for us, it reduced stress. But then, on the other hand, we had a lot of bus rides, it seemed like an awful lot of bus rides, we were constantly going to Washington, D.C. We had a sense of elation when President Clinton was elected for his first term and we really had hopes of great things – and then the worst thing he did was to [sign] part of DOMA and that set us back. The focus on running kept us levelheaded and it kept us together. We were Democrats, liberals and Independents, and had our own sense of what running should be and should not be. Our logo back then was the Lambda [an international symbol of LGBT rights] and it meant liberation and that was our politics. Running Lambdas meant we were free. FRNY: What was your platform running for President? Marty: My simple platform was running. If you wanted to be part of another organization like Act Up or any other political organization, you can join that. But you could still be a Front Runner. Did they conflict? In other people’s minds, they did. I didn’t have a problem with that. I certainly laid on the ground pavement in front of City Hall with a lot of Front Runners for [the government’s] inaction, their insensitivity to people, in particular gay men who were not only still dying of Aids, but sick with Aids. I guess we were activists. FRNY: Did you have fundraisers for HIV/Aids through Front Runners? Marty: We had just organized the Charitable Foundation [more information in �the FRNY and the HIV/AIDS epidemic exhibiton] and we did have fundraisers for it. It was not only for people with Aids, but it was also for people in need who didn’t qualify for city or state funding. FRNY: Did you have breakfast at Rutgers Presbyterian Church at that time? Marty: We’d been part of that for a few years back then. Our claim to fame during 1993 was that we had a marathon breakfast, plus a marathon pasta party [the night before], and there were a few members who thought we couldn’t possible pull that off. FRNY: What was the biggest challenge during that year? Marty: Probably the most painful part was in March, a great teammate of mine in the Gay Games in 1986 and 1990 in Vancouver, Mickey Zacudo, died very suddenly of a bacterial infection [a dedication to her is included in the 1993 Pride Run program]. She was our first woman to die and, emotionally, it really set me back more than anything. That was probably the most depressing time for me. FRNY: Were you going to a lot of Aids-related funerals during that time? Marty: Oh, sure. Going back to the first Front Runner member who died, every one of them was very special and the memorial services were also special and different. To go through that and run the next day was kind of bizarre. It kept us strong. Again, as Front Runners, we’re a family and, for a lot of members, we are the family to them. I see Front Runner members as my family, closer to me than my genetic family. FRNY: You raise a good point. Society, people’s families and even their friends, perhaps, weren’t as accepting of their sexuality as they are now, 20 years later. Marty: That’s for sure. Don’t forget we had members who could not be listed in our directory and didn’t want their telephone numbers listed. It was sobering and also disturbing. We still had a long way to go. That was 1993, for God’s sake, not ’68 or ’70. FRNY: How did you get the updates to Front Runners about things that were happening? Was that done through snail mail back then? Marty: We had a great newsletter and telephone calls. It was like today’s email. FRNY: Did you have to be mindful of how you identified yourself if you called somebody or sent them something through the post? �Marty: No, you certainly wouldn’t call someone at their job, you’d call them at home and there wasn’t a problem with that. FRNY: So, Marty, tell me about one of your proudest moments during 1993. Marty: Oh, God. There were many. Putting on the Gay Pride Run was the highlight of the year and we had two co-chairs that did such a great job that it just made us all proud and, very special. FRNY: So what was your style like as president? Marty: I saw myself as outgoing, friendly to everybody. It was important back then to greet everyone, to find out who the newcomers were, to run with them. I never led a run. I always stayed in the back and ran with them at whatever pace they were running at. I was capable of running with anybody. But I always felt that that was very important to feel that they were included and to invite them to breakfast. FRNY: None of that seems to have change since then. Marty: Hopefully, not. Now as one of the senior members, I automatically say hello to somebody anyway. I don’t wait for someone to come up to me. Even back then, I didn’t wait for someone to come up to me to say hello. FRNY: At the moment, most of the Front Runners skew younger in age, although there is a great variety of ages, has that always been the case? Marty: We always had young people. And then every now and then we’d get the older fellow or woman that would join. Some would stay and some would not. They came for many reasons, be that they lost a partner after so many years and were finally alone and isolated. We’re great for that. We can help. FRNY: In 1993, it might have been the first experience people had of coming out or socializing with other LGBT people. Were you more aware of that back then? Marty: For sure. They would talk about that – that this was their first time that they had been exposed to a gay organization, which was kind of like shocking to me. It was ’93, not ’73. Where were they the last 20 years? Again, we reinforced the friendliness. FRNY: I guess everybody’s on their own path, right? Marty: Yes, exactly that. More than anything, it was all about running. If you want to enjoy the beauty of running, join us. We had Tina [Isselbacher] and Jeff [Singleton] and their gorgeous child, Haley. They were probably our first �heterosexual couple and they were so supportive in many things. Even today, I still love them both dearly. FRNY: They still come today? Marty: No, that’s part of life. People move on. But once you join Front Runners you are always a member. You may not be a dues-paying member, but you’ll always be a Front Runner and I’m a great believer in that. I remember one fellow – that was part of his obituary, that he was a Front Runner. That was more important than his job, his profession, his great athletic ability, that he was a Front Runner, and I was very impressed with that. FRNY: What does the club mean to you today? Marty: Going back to the book, “The Front Runner,” [available at libraries and booksellers] by Patricia Nell Warren, there’s a time when we dance close and times when we dance apart. There are times when we are very active in Front Runners and then there are periods where we are not. Like your own family, there are times when you don’t get on, but you still show up, and it’s the same with Front Runners New York. No matter what, we still show up. I loved the idea when I first joined that, at some point I will be competitive, I just have to hang in there and it will be my turn. With any Front Runner it will be their turn to shine. We all have to be willing to cheer them on. This interview has been edited for space and style. For the full audio interview, please listen here (members-only). � http://archives.frny.org/files/original/8e4706be325ed34ef44644b969b1d8e8.rtf 36d9530c03f147c0385f080f8089bf3c 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 Oral Histories 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 Marty King interview with Quentin Fottrell Description An account of the resource Marty King was president of Front Runners New York in 1993. He met his partner Javier Guillen, in 1998, and they moved to Lima, Peru three years ago. Marty, a retired healthcare provider, is a former town crier of Provincetown, Mass., a position he held for 10 consecutive summers. He hopes to celebrate his 75th birthday in November by running the 2015 New York City Marathon. He has already run the Boston Marathon 10 times. Marty spoke to Quentin Fottrell at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York on June 15, 2015. Audio and edited interview included. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Marty King Quentin Fottrell Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015 June 15 Year:1980s Year:1990s Year:2010s http://archives.frny.org/files/original/bc7768cb3c94e67afff3bada776617cd.pdf e83ee11e01ac7594e35d70b575142685 PDF Text Text Richard Walker Interview with Fred Pfaff, February 11, 2016 Richard Walker led Front Runners New York 30 years ago, when AIDS darkened the landscape, Gay Games was just gathering momentum, and the idea of an international Front Runners conference was just that. He started as treasurer in 1983-1984, served as vice president in 1985 and then president in 1986 and 1987. How did you come to join Front Runners? When I moved to New York in my twenties, I enjoyed my newfound freedom in the city perhaps a little too avidly. Consequently, I reached the point where I wanted something more than just going out to bars, so I volunteered at Gay Men's Health Project, a small STD-screening clinic organized by gay doctors who realized that many men were hesitant to talk about being gay with their straight doctors. Believe it or not, I met my first partner there. He was a Front Runner and he introduced me to running as a sport and to the club. What was the tenor of the club at the time? The AIDS crisis was looming over our lives, yet club members stepped up, whether they were visiting people in the hospital, taking care of sufferers’ private matters, or organizing memorials. The club's collective support helped each of us get through that worrisome and mournful time. I recall one outgoing, fun-loving member, Tom Cook, did not want most people visiting him because he did not like the way he looked with Kaposi Sarcoma’s lesions. But he allowed Front Runners to come visit. The Front Runners may not have been his biological family, but we were his logical family. In the 1980s, there were still members who were closeted except when they were at Front Runners. Many people chose to opt out of being listed in the membership directory, fearing it would fall into the wrong hands. I remember TJ Storch walked around the block three or four times before he got the courage to drop off his bag at the restaurant where we met before we went to run. Front Runners was part of his coming-out process, and he later served out-andproudly as vice president during my terms as president. What did it mean to be a Front Runner then? Front Runners represented a healthy lifestyle – a place to gather that was not focused on the bar scene, but on welcoming people of all athletic abilities. Regardless of whether you were a gay man, HIV negative or positive, lesbian, bisexual, or whatever racial origin, it did not matter. Front Runners was a place where you could focus on health and camaraderie. The club fostered friendships that extended beyond running. When we ran each other wearing business attire during work hours, we’d whisper, “I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.” Meaning, of course, we’d only see each other in running shorts. � What are you proudest of during your tenure as president? At Gay Games II (San Francisco, 1986), most of the running events were devoted to track and field. None of the Front Runners New York was particularly adept at track and field events, so we hired our first coach who helped us learn about sprinting and other track techniques. I'm proud to say the club showed up quite well in the number of medals won. The next year, we held the very first global Front Runners Conference in New York. We had been doing trips to visit with the Boston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. clubs. After the Gay Games where we met Front Runners from all over the world, we felt it important to bring people together so that there was cohesiveness, camaraderie, and collaboration among the clubs. We had Front Runners members coming in from all over North America for the conference. I think that event helped foster Front Runners not as a collection of individual organizations, but more of a cohesive group of affiliated clubs. What was the biggest challenge you faced at president? There were three big challenges. First, we had some very lean financial years and we needed to build up the treasury, so that we could make deposits on items that we were had to rent or purchase for the Pride Run. Number two was participation by women. We had a handful of women who came dutifully, in snow, rain, heat, and gloom of night, like the old postal service motto. We realized that we needed to request one more favor of them, which was to reach out to other women to ask them to run with the group because peer-to-peer invitations were the most effective. I think the third and most ominous challenge was the AIDS crisis and the toll it took not just on the gay community at large, but on Front Runners members. I’m proud that both the gay men and lesbians of Front Runners stepped up to be caretakers or to help with fundraisers. What encourages you most about the club’s evolution? I feel that Front Runners is truly a national brand now. You don’t have to know the origins from The Front Runner, the book by Patricia Nell Warren, to feel the camaraderie of being a Front Runner, regardless of what city you are in. As I look through recent photos of Front Runners New York, I'm very happy to see a larger group of women. And I’m happy the club is on a much better financial footing than we were in 1985 and 1986. What does Front Runners mean to you? Front Runners means the support of community. The place where I found a healthy lifestyle, solidarity and friendship. Although I don't run anymore, I still proudly wear my Front Runner New York jacket on special occasions. And I have made close friendships that have lasted for decades. To me, Front Runners represents some of the best of the gay community. You never know who you're going to meet ... a new friend, a business colleague, or even a celebrity (I met �actor George Takei and his husband Brad through Front Runners). You never know what adventures and enriching experiences will come from club events. While I wouldn’t recognize many faces, I feel as though I could walk into the basement of Rutgers or meet for a Central Park run and feel at home. Front Runners is an essential part of who I was – and who I am today. In 2004, when then San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom opened up marriage to same-gender couples, my partner and I went down to the courthouse. We were asked by an Associated Press photographer and reporter if they could follow us through the process of getting married. The story and photographs were picked up in newspapers all over the world. I believe that my tenure as a member and officer of Front Runners New York helped prepare me for coming out on such a public scale. What advice would you give the club now? We're facing a period of trends and counter-trends – one in which our rights toward full equality are going to move ahead, while another societal movement continues to demonize the LGBT community. Consequently, I think it's important that Front Runners keeps focused on sports, health, and camaraderie, providing a positive image of LGBT individuals. We don’t need to be a political club, but our visibility by its very nature is political. We’re running every step toward equality. � 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 Oral Histories 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 Rich Walker Interview with Fred Pfaff Description An account of the resource Fredd Pfaff interviews Rich Walker. He served as FRNY president from 1986 to 1987, and discusses topics such as the AIDS crisis, Gay Games and gay marriage. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rich Walker Fred Pfaff Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 February 11 Language A language of the resource en-US Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant New York, NY Year:1980s Year:2000s