(Note - GLBT News features this article by Michael Chanak in the January 2012 print edition. GLBT News is published by Worley Rodehaver. Contact Worley regarding his web site or his newspapers:

What better day?

Pride celebration planning meetings always turn to history of the community, the event and who was involved. Such was the case on December 6, 2011 when five former Cincinnati Pride Marshals, Cheryl Eagleson, John Maddux, Rusty Lockett, Michael Cottrell and this columnist attended the first open Cincinnati Pride planning meeting of the 2012 season.

We know that much of GLBT history remains told by word of mouth and story telling. I think Ron Clemons said it best that evening – the rainbow is a spectrum of all ages.

Cheryl, John and I suggested former marshals being part of the parade as a group, or staged in an area along the parade route to be recognized, or at a party such as Cheryl hosted in 2009 for the former marshals. All these ideas were put forth to help our communities become more aware of the long and rich history of contribution and leadership that has brought us to this point.

Who did we miss? We promised the 2012 organizers a list of former marshals. All of us need to confirm with the community who the marshals in Cincinnati were over the years. Here’s the list we have developed, if you know of someone we missed, a name misspelled, drop me a line, chanakmx@yahoo.com:

Karen Aronoff-Holtmeier

Phebe Beiser

Randy Bridges

Doris Marks Callis

Michael Chanak

Michael Cottrell

David Crowley (Deceased)

Michael E. Dorobek (Deceased)

Cheryl Eagleson

Patti Herrmann

Rev. Dr. Paula Marie Jackson

Scott Knox

Kathy Laufman

Rusty Lockett

Dr. John A. Maddux

Scott McLarty

Megan Neal

Dr. Shane Que Hee

Victoria Ramstetter

Worley Rodehaver

Dr. Ronn Rucker

Peter A Thompson (Deceased) “Peaches LaVerne”

Marian Weage

Dr. Larry Wolf

What better day to celebrate nearly 40 years of local history, with various starts and stops along the way, than our own Cincinnati Pride celebration?