Ken Kazmerski |
Ken Kazmerski, GLBT History Museum co-founder.
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Ken Kazmerski Oral History
Transcript
Ken Kazmerski: I’m Ken Kazmerski, and I came to Orlando in 1980, January. Came out of the closet in 1985, five years after coming here. And then began to get active in the gay community. And it was not until 1994, however, that I got involved with the Gay and Lesbian, Bisexual Student Union, which was not known as that at that time. At that time it was the Gay Student Association of UCF. And as a result of my becoming the faculty advisor for GLBSU I became involved in other, with other organization- gay organizations here in the Orlando area. And it was also as a result of that that I got involved with the history project, and if you want me to elaborate on that one I certainly will.
The GLBSU was not GLBSU, first of all, and second, I think it was the summer of ’93, it could have been the summer of ’94, students in my class – a student in my class, a lesbian, and that lesbian had invited me to a concert on campus. It was the Village People. And I went there with other friends, but met up with my student, and after that it wasn’t too long that she asked me if I’d be interested in being an advisor to the gay student group on campus. And that’s how I got involved, I agreed.
I was out on campus since 1985, and this was 1993 or 1994 that she approached me, so as a faculty member, and a member of the administration, I was known already to be out. I was known for teaching content on GLBT issues, and in fact, had begun to design a course on social work with gays and lesbians. I never did finish that, because I retired before I could get it done.
The History Project was probably the brainchild of Debbie Simmons, who headed up the Metropolitan Business Association, the Gay Community Chamber of Commerce. And I’m not sure why, but here’s what was happening: National Coming Out Day, which is when Coming Out with Pride occurs now, had been – if you can say owned – was quote “owned” by GLBSU of UCF. Now, whoever had the idea for Come Out with Pride knew that and invited GLBSU to jointly sponsor Come Out with Pride. Come Out with Pride decided to have it at Heritage Square, which is right by the history museum, the County History Museum in Orlando. Now I don’t know this, but Debbie would know this – she denies this – but I suspect that there was some agreement to have something within the museum as well as outside the museum. I think either Debbie wanted that to occur, or the museum - who had control over Heritage Park - wanted that to occur, I’m not sure who was responsible.
So Debbie gets on the phone. She calls several people, including Patty Sheehan, Phyllis Murphy, Mary… I don’t remember Mary’s last name- Rooks(?), and me to kind of think about putting on a history exhibit at the museum as part of Come Out with Pride. That’s how it started. Now we only, mind you, had six or seven weeks to do this in. We met at – we didn’t have an office, obviously, we didn’t have anything. We didn’t have a telephone, we didn’t have an address, we didn’t have anything! But we met at Debbie’s print shop in downtown, well close to the Center. And there we talked about what we might do. Well, with so little time we couldn’t find material for blowing up poster- we didn’t have a budget! So what we did do is, I went back to my GLBSU group, and said “let’s pull something together” and “give me some pictures.” So we created a couple of, three maybe, collages about UCF’s GLBSU and put them on tripods. Debbie did the same with MBA. She created collages of the history and important events the- in MBA’s existence. I called Joy Metropolitan Community Church, and spoke with the pastor and was able to get them to help me to pull a collage together of Joy MCC. And then Phyllis and Mary, who are partners, decided they would do one on the Pride Parades, which they had been spearheading in the past.
So we had four groups of collages on those four topics. That was the first exhibit. It was pretty rinky-dink. But it was good! Because it called attention to a idea called “the history project”, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender History Project.
The second year, we had time. We had a whole year to get things together. We blew up things- We blew up pictures into posters, we wrote captions for different posters. We got a budget for the first time. We still met, I think, in Debbie’s print shop. And we had big banners that went in the museum from the second floor almost down to the first floor. It was beautiful. And the museum was so proud of that second exhibit they wanted us back. But, Come Out with Pride decided to move its location to Lake Eola because they had outgrown Heritage Park already. So therefore, we moved down to Come Out- the Come Out with Pride, we moved with them to Lake Eola.
Lake Eola was a great place and the attendance there was fantastic and we got all kinds of people to come through our exhibit. But our exhibit was not really there, our exhibit at Lake Eola was in a round tent – kind of like a circus tent but much smaller, it was pretty. But we had to share it with music, and we didn’t like that. The History Project did not like that – Debbie had stepped out of it, by the way, by then and I was chairing it from the second year on. And my group really did not want to do it there since we had to share it with tables for music and drinking and everything… it was not a museum setting.
So we decided to have a month long exhibit at the Center, the GLBT Center. And we had it upstairs because we couldn’t get the downstairs, there was too many things going on, too many things, plans scheduled. So we put on a major month long exhibit – I think ended up being three weeks, but we called it a month long exhibit. And it was very nice, and well received, but here we didn’t get as much- I mean, at the Center we didn’t get as much attendance, of course, as we would at the Come Out with Pride celebration. So we moved it back the following year. We got- We spoke with Come Out with Pride, they got a donation I believe from Darden. We got a tent. And it was a good-sized tent, it was air conditioned, we insisted on that. And so, Darden really sponsored that, through Come Out with Pride. And it was viewed by, what, thirty some- thirty thousand people, I think. We had to even count the number coming through. We only had a thousand stickers to put on people, when they ran out we knew we had a thousand and there were a heck of a lot more people coming out after that. So we don’t know how many-
But then the following year we did it again at Lake Eola, in another air-conditioned tent. But this year we are now a museum, and we are going to have a tent again at Come Out with Pride, because of- because so many people then get to see it. But we’re also going to have a month-long exhibit at the City Art Factory on Orlando Avenue in Downtown Orlando. So it’s moved from a small project to a major- I think it’s a major… it’s no longer a project- a museum. It’s a virtual museum, and it’s a mobile museum, right now.
The GLBSU was not GLBSU, first of all, and second, I think it was the summer of ’93, it could have been the summer of ’94, students in my class – a student in my class, a lesbian, and that lesbian had invited me to a concert on campus. It was the Village People. And I went there with other friends, but met up with my student, and after that it wasn’t too long that she asked me if I’d be interested in being an advisor to the gay student group on campus. And that’s how I got involved, I agreed.
I was out on campus since 1985, and this was 1993 or 1994 that she approached me, so as a faculty member, and a member of the administration, I was known already to be out. I was known for teaching content on GLBT issues, and in fact, had begun to design a course on social work with gays and lesbians. I never did finish that, because I retired before I could get it done.
The History Project was probably the brainchild of Debbie Simmons, who headed up the Metropolitan Business Association, the Gay Community Chamber of Commerce. And I’m not sure why, but here’s what was happening: National Coming Out Day, which is when Coming Out with Pride occurs now, had been – if you can say owned – was quote “owned” by GLBSU of UCF. Now, whoever had the idea for Come Out with Pride knew that and invited GLBSU to jointly sponsor Come Out with Pride. Come Out with Pride decided to have it at Heritage Square, which is right by the history museum, the County History Museum in Orlando. Now I don’t know this, but Debbie would know this – she denies this – but I suspect that there was some agreement to have something within the museum as well as outside the museum. I think either Debbie wanted that to occur, or the museum - who had control over Heritage Park - wanted that to occur, I’m not sure who was responsible.
So Debbie gets on the phone. She calls several people, including Patty Sheehan, Phyllis Murphy, Mary… I don’t remember Mary’s last name- Rooks(?), and me to kind of think about putting on a history exhibit at the museum as part of Come Out with Pride. That’s how it started. Now we only, mind you, had six or seven weeks to do this in. We met at – we didn’t have an office, obviously, we didn’t have anything. We didn’t have a telephone, we didn’t have an address, we didn’t have anything! But we met at Debbie’s print shop in downtown, well close to the Center. And there we talked about what we might do. Well, with so little time we couldn’t find material for blowing up poster- we didn’t have a budget! So what we did do is, I went back to my GLBSU group, and said “let’s pull something together” and “give me some pictures.” So we created a couple of, three maybe, collages about UCF’s GLBSU and put them on tripods. Debbie did the same with MBA. She created collages of the history and important events the- in MBA’s existence. I called Joy Metropolitan Community Church, and spoke with the pastor and was able to get them to help me to pull a collage together of Joy MCC. And then Phyllis and Mary, who are partners, decided they would do one on the Pride Parades, which they had been spearheading in the past.
So we had four groups of collages on those four topics. That was the first exhibit. It was pretty rinky-dink. But it was good! Because it called attention to a idea called “the history project”, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender History Project.
The second year, we had time. We had a whole year to get things together. We blew up things- We blew up pictures into posters, we wrote captions for different posters. We got a budget for the first time. We still met, I think, in Debbie’s print shop. And we had big banners that went in the museum from the second floor almost down to the first floor. It was beautiful. And the museum was so proud of that second exhibit they wanted us back. But, Come Out with Pride decided to move its location to Lake Eola because they had outgrown Heritage Park already. So therefore, we moved down to Come Out- the Come Out with Pride, we moved with them to Lake Eola.
Lake Eola was a great place and the attendance there was fantastic and we got all kinds of people to come through our exhibit. But our exhibit was not really there, our exhibit at Lake Eola was in a round tent – kind of like a circus tent but much smaller, it was pretty. But we had to share it with music, and we didn’t like that. The History Project did not like that – Debbie had stepped out of it, by the way, by then and I was chairing it from the second year on. And my group really did not want to do it there since we had to share it with tables for music and drinking and everything… it was not a museum setting.
So we decided to have a month long exhibit at the Center, the GLBT Center. And we had it upstairs because we couldn’t get the downstairs, there was too many things going on, too many things, plans scheduled. So we put on a major month long exhibit – I think ended up being three weeks, but we called it a month long exhibit. And it was very nice, and well received, but here we didn’t get as much- I mean, at the Center we didn’t get as much attendance, of course, as we would at the Come Out with Pride celebration. So we moved it back the following year. We got- We spoke with Come Out with Pride, they got a donation I believe from Darden. We got a tent. And it was a good-sized tent, it was air conditioned, we insisted on that. And so, Darden really sponsored that, through Come Out with Pride. And it was viewed by, what, thirty some- thirty thousand people, I think. We had to even count the number coming through. We only had a thousand stickers to put on people, when they ran out we knew we had a thousand and there were a heck of a lot more people coming out after that. So we don’t know how many-
But then the following year we did it again at Lake Eola, in another air-conditioned tent. But this year we are now a museum, and we are going to have a tent again at Come Out with Pride, because of- because so many people then get to see it. But we’re also going to have a month-long exhibit at the City Art Factory on Orlando Avenue in Downtown Orlando. So it’s moved from a small project to a major- I think it’s a major… it’s no longer a project- a museum. It’s a virtual museum, and it’s a mobile museum, right now.