Over the Rainbow Festival - Success & Link to 2008 Youth Activist Award

Mt Vernon High School Gay/Straight Alliance 'Over The Rainbow' Festival featured 1 1/2 days of workshops and finished with an evening of entertainment.  The workshops provided topics on gay history, addressing homophobia, religion and being gay, gender identity, healthy relationships/healthy sex, and queer people of color.  Mt Vernon had it going on!

I met with good friends Bec and Mickey after dropping off the teen for her chorus practice and went to the local Chuck Wagon for dinner.  As the trains whistled around the tops of our heads we attempted to solve life's problems over some hot food before returning for the entertainment.  Life's problems are always better when shared with good friends...this is the one thing I know for sure and I felt blessed in Mt Vernon for a couple reasons on Saturday.   

There are many ways that an event can be counted as successful.  Sometimes it is by the tickets sold, the amount of monies raised or by surveys gathered.  Or as was the case last Saturday evening by the feeling in the audience at Mt Vernon High School as each performer gave of themselves for Mt Vernon's Gay/Straight Alliance program's entertainment that celebrated it's 3rd annual 'Over the Rainbow' festival.  It is not often that a large city High School offers the range of diversity education that lil ole Mt Vernon had on their schedule. 

I am going to oohh and ahhh so be prepared.  First, the entertainment was MC'd by well known, amazing, (have you see those legs-omg and that hot bod) fabulous and so sincere Aleksa Manila.  It was obvious that Aleksa aka Arnold Martin cared about doing this gig and was invested in the lives of the teens that are mentored by this event.  I have been to plenty of events where the talent acted bored and was more interested in their own egos.  Aleksa was AMAZING and indeed such a honey!

Aleksa tailored his style to the audience, was age appropriate, was not too racy but still hip enough for the teens.  He was funny, cute, charming and left just enough to the imagination (ok, I fell a bit in love).  I also had the honor of eavesdropping on Aleksa interacting with a few of the teens and was so impressed with the respectful way he talked with them.   I now have another way to spell role model A L E K S A.  This may have been some to these kids' first experience with a Drag Queen and what a great first!



We had the pleasure of hearing Chris Riffle, a MVHS graduate who is now a New York singer/song writer who sang several songs with his back up band.  He has just released his first album in January and the GayZette wishes him great success.  Brock Madden who is with the Seattle Men's Chorus was most entertaining as he provided humor as he sang.  He wrapped the evening up and had the audience laughing with his dry sense of humor and fabulous facial expressions.  He is one that watching is half the fun.

The middle act was 'Diverse Harmony', the first Gay/Straight Alliance Chorus from Seattle and they definitely have my heartstrings.  Seven members of the chorus performed 5 songs for this event.  The chorus boasts 21 members with 6 males this year.  They preformed 'Over the Rainbow' which was perfect for the event but the crowd favorite seemed to be 'The First Day of School' from their upcoming new musical 'Best Friends Forever'.  It is a fun, upbeat and realistic song that takes the listener back to high school in a hot second!  Best Friends Forever will debut Memorial Day Weekend and is entirely written by one of the very talented members of Diverse Harmony, Kat Miller who I will be highlighting in a future GayZette!

A Shout-Out has to go out to school librarian Cathy Pfahl who fought tirelessly for 3 years to get the Gay/Straight Alliance to be a reality at Mt Vernon High.  In fact, there is an article in this weeks Seattle Gay News about the recipient of the 2008 Youth Activist Award given by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington to Mt. Vernon High School graduate Ian Feis.  He and Cathy were instrumental in the beginnings of the Gay/Straight Alliance.  I LOVE it when a good deed is rewarded!

From the heart,

Ms T