Out in the Mountains

Outright Changes Guard and Carries On

Dorothea V. Brauer

It was a warm Sunday evening in July of
1991. The sun was still afternoon bright
on the dashboard as I drove into
Burlington with Howdy Russell to play
volleyball. When he asked me if I would
consider applying for the position that
was opening at Outright Vermont, I was
excited and also hesitant. I did apply; I
was offered the position, and thus began
fourteen of the most challenging,
enlightening, difficult, and rewarding
months of my life.

During that time I had the opportunity to
work with Howdy Russell in his last
months as Board Chair and Eric Nichols
in his first. As of this March, Eric
stepped down after two years as Board
Chair. The current Board of Directors has
asked me to write something about my
experience of these two men to help us
remember the leadership that has been so
important to sustaining the vision and life
energy of Outright Vermont during its
most recent chapter of development.

Before I began at Outright, I knew
Howdy as something of a local hero. He

 

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had helped form the Vermont Coalition
for Lesbian and Gay Men, Out In The
Mountains, and Vermont Gay Volleyball.
He had put his face in front of newspaper
and television cameras lobbying in the
State House for passage of civil rights
legislation. Most recently he had helped
form Outright, an organization committed
to improving the condition of glb youth,
and run for the Vermont Senate. I saw
him as a man of great courage, deep
resolve and incisive vision. If Howdy
believed in something, he worked at it
with everything that he had.

At Outright I realized that Howdy's
leadership came from his ability to
believe deeply enough to carry people
around him through the murky
uncertainties of their own doubts. Over
the months I became aware of how much
Howdy too struggled with doubts and
fears and I came to appreciate more
deeply another dimension of leadership:
the ability to maintain your resolve in
spite of being frightened to your core. I
spoke with Howdy recently about his
recollections about Outright.

db: Why did you get involved in forming
Outright? ..
HR: I went to a training given by the
National Lesbian and Gay Health
Conference in Boston in 1988. There was
a panel of gay, lesbian and bisexual
young people there and they were very
Challenging. They kept responding to gay
adults’ statements about why we felt
paralyzed to help, by saying, “Well you
have to do it anyway. If youre not going
to do it, who is?” They were not at all
disuaded by our best rational arguments
for why we couldn't do it. I realized how
much the experience they were describing
resonated with my own experience
growing up here in Vermont.

db: Can you describe how Outright got
started?

HR: A group of people began meeting in
November of 1988 and began
brainstorming and fantasizing about what
could be done. In the summer of 1989, 12
of us attended an all day retreat and made
a financial commitment to raise the
money personally to secure the office
over VT CARES for the first year. Then
we started grant writing and began
securing the funds to hire the first staff
person.

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db: What was the biggest struggle for you
in your work with Outright?

HR: That's a hard one. In some ways it
seemed that the more we did, the more we
uncovered and it felt overwhelming. It
was hard seeing the need and knowing
how to respond, but simply not being able
to do it all. What became necessary for all
of us working there, staff and volunteers,
was we had to learn to set limits and
realize that we were doing the best we
could. You can burn individuals and
organizations out fast.

db: What was most exciting for you?

HR: This is also a hard question because
there is a lot to choose from. One of the
most exciting things was moving to our
current office. We were no longer just a
sublettor, we had become an organization
in our own right. Not just the physical
move, but what it symbolized. The other
exciting thing for me is anytime I help
facilitate a support group for young people
there. That's always a highlight for me and
reminds me of what it's all about. Its just
been exciting watching Outright grow,
seeing different people get involved over
the years in positions of leadership, and
how each person has brought something
different; it has always turned out to be just
what the organization needed at the time.

 

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