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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 15, 2008)
uljustput AUGUST 15, 2008 northwest On the Road to Equality Hermiston wades into the "Pride" pool by Stephen Marc Beaudoin Perfect Image Plus Salon A Full Service Salon Planning tuesday - Saturday or by appt 6512 N. Greeley Ave. Portland Or 9721 7 Salon: 503-263-4905 « We've just installed NEW bulbs in our state-of-the-art stand up unit and are ready to serve your tanning needs 10% off any Tanning Package during August With this coupon business a foreign language? we translate, sign up today! small biz group coaching get informed, create community; 4 hrs only $95/mo! 'ÎM k causing love weds, 8/13, 6-9; $34 © touchstone coflee & tea biz plans 101 sat, 9/20, 10-4; $44 @ the q-center causeit small biz marketing 101 sat, 10/4,10 4; $44 © the q-center rsvp online or by phone today causeit.org |503.493.7332 | coaching & business development for our community CVRC - specialty care partners for pets and their people The CVRC is a state of the art referral veterinary practice that features surgery and internal medicine services, as well as advanced radiography capability through an on-site CT scanner and a digital radiography system. www.cascadevrc.com 503.684.1800 I ventured out to Umatilla County with an other queer friend that weekend to take the pulse of gay life in rural eastern Oregon, and chronicled my trip to Hermiston and back with live blogging at JustOut.com. Here are some excerpts from my adventure “on the road to equality.” • 4:35 p.m. Aug. 1: The car stereo iPod is pumping out Cyndi Lauper and Chanticleer as my travel mate and I round another low mountain highway comer, the choke of green disappear ing in that quick instant of a 90-degree turn to reveal another jaw-dropping expanse of Oregon rural flatland. We’re still a good two hours outside Hermiston, buzzing through Bingen, Wash. “God, I love America,” said my travel companion, and hey, I think he really meant it. • 7:02 p.m. Aug. 1: We arrive at our destina tion—Umatilla’s Tillicum Inn—just after 7 p.m. and hustle out of the car to unload our bags and stretch our legs. We’re hit with our first wave of country cow stench. It just about knocks us on the ground. • 7:40 p.m. Aug. 1: I’m meeting with 31-year-old openly gay event organizer Frank Roa, director of the region’s pro gressive human dignity group, Umatilla Morrow Alternatives, in the lobby of the Oxford Suites hotel in downtown Hermiston. The stocky, soft-spoken activ ist tries to downplay any sense of occasion about the looming event, even as he rattles off the myriad ways in which he’s been spreading the word: through community fliering, Craigslist postings, e-mail mes sages and public service announcements on local radio stations. He’s even got up the gumption to ride on a Umatilla Morrow Alternatives float in the annual Umatilla County Fair Parade, which kicks off after his “Equality Event.” Roa says the float will feature rainbow flags—three, to be precise. • 1:42 a.m. Aug. 2: Though the clos est gay bar to Hermiston is an hour north Umatilla Morrow Alternatives director Frank Roa in Tri-Cities, Wash., there are straight strip says, "We just need to engage more in the clubs in Umatilla County by the score. One community" on equality issues in eastern Oregon. ermiston held its first-ever “Equality Event” Aug. 2—a blending of Gay Pride, Latino Pride and Iraq War awareness and activism in one meta progressive day of speakers, exhibition, community fair and more, in the city’s downtown Victory Square Park. For working-class Hermiston—population 15,410, chockablock with farm parts stores and pickups, and home of the country’s first Shari’s restaurant—it was poised to be a major event shaking up the very soul of this sleepy conserva tive community. But for 22-year-old openly gay Hermiston resi dent Shane Villanueva, it was ultimately a disap pointment: “I could probably count on one hand the gay people 1 know in this town,’’ he said in an interview after walking through Victory Square Park to check out the event. “It’s such a small town, and it wasn’t publicized good enough,” he said, adding, “It doesn’t help that this town is still kind of really religious.”
