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John
Asheville, North Carolina
69 years old
I am a 69 year old gay man, born and raised in NC. Couldn't wait to escape. Joined the military where I gradually came out to friends and family. Retired after 23 years in Army (8 1/2 years active duty; 15 years in Army Reserve.)
I was stationed in DC area for many years where I marched in several gay pride parades including the candlelight march around around the White House during George H.W. Bush's time there.
In Arlington, Virginia, I participated in activities within the county government and school system. In 1986, I was appointed by the county manager to a special AIDS Task Force. This task force produced a long range plan to address AIDS education and services within the county, creating an AIDS Bureau within the County Health Department.
After the health education director for the Arlington County schools refused to speak at an AGA meeting, I got myself appointed to the Arlington County School Board’s Health and Physical Education Committee in l985 and served for the next 7 years. As a member of this committee, I was instrumental in helping create an AIDS education curriculum for the Arlington school system, which includes lesson plans for kindergarten through twelfth grade. The most continuous issue was to include a lesson plan to discuss homosexuality in the classroom under Virginia’s Family Life Curriculum (sex education). In addition to the sex education curriculum, I also served on the textbook committee to select the health education textbooks for the county system.
I served as a member and later chair of the Advisory Board of the Whitman Walker Clinic of Northern Virginia from l992-1997. In 1994, I was appointed by the Arlington County Board to a committee to evaluate the public health programs of the Arlington Department of Human Services.
I returned to NC and Asheville 14 years ago. Active in my church. Have taught children in Sunday School for 5 years, been a Deacon, and still active in church.
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