Logan prepares for first pride festival
Provo had one.
So did Ogden. And Salt Lake City, which was first.
And now — edging on 40 years after the state’s first pride festival — Logan is the latest college town to get its pride.
Saturday will mark the first annual Logan Pride Festival. The free festival, which is being billed as a family event, will coincide with the Logan Block Film & Art Festival and will feature music, food trucks, politicians, an interfaith service and an art stroll.
This past summer, in Utah’s capital city, the Utah Pride Festival broke its attendance record, with an estimated 54,000 participants. The growing festival was once a counterculture celebration in a city where the skyline is dominated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ headquarters. Salt Lake City now finds itself with an openly gay mayor and the 7th highest percentage of people who identify as LGBT in the United States, according to the most recent Gallup poll.
Logan Pride Festival’s director, Turner Bitton, said it was a conversation at this past summer’s Utah Pride Festival that eventually snowballed into a meeting in July and a festival in October.
“What spurred the conversation was Logan had several suicides,” Bitton said. “We don’t know for sure, but we suspect they were LGBT. A lot of folks feel lost. We wanted to show that we have a vibrant community and that LGBT folks are happy and healthy and have families and friends and really celebrate that in Cache Valley.”
Oct. 14, just a few days after this year’s festival, will mark one year since a local transgender woman made national headlines with her suicide and a final plea in the form of a Facebook post.
“From a very young age, I was told that people like me are freaks and abominations, that we are sick in the head and society hates us,” Ashley Hallstrom, 26, wrote. “This made me hate who I was. I tried so hard to be just like everyone else but this isn’t something you can change. I can’t stand to live another day, so I’m committing suicide. Please share my final words. I believe my last words can help make the change that society needs to make so one day there will be no others like me.”
After updating her profile picture and writing the post, Hallstrom made her way to U.S. Highway 89/91 in south Logan where she walked into traffic.
The interfaith service, which will have representatives from seven different faiths, includes a candlelight memorial for victims of violence, those who have committed suicide and community members that have died from natural causes.
But Doree Burt, the interfaith service director, said the overarching theme is rejoicing and finding comfort in the community.
“If people come, they’ll realize there is no ‘us’ and ‘them’ — there is just all of us,” she said.
Bitton said the festival will provide an opportunity for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community to celebrate itself, but, more importantly, to build community.
“The goal is to bring people together,” Bitton said. “A lot of people have never been to a pride festival. This is a good opportunity for them to interact.”
Carol Gnade, the executive director of the Utah Pride Center, said she was excited to hear about the Beehive State’s newest pride festival.
“I think it’s wonderful,” she said. “That’s the dream — to spread the freedom to be yourself and share the light of our progress. I’m really happy to see that freedom is spreading.”
Organizers said the event coincides with Logan’s annual film and art festival so festival-goers can walk seamlessly between the two events.
Mason Johnson, the lead producer of The Block Film & Art Festival, said the two were easily combined and the inclusion of LGBT films was an obvious opportunity for crossover between the events.
“Our festival is about independent expression and creative vision,” he said. “That is a natural fit to the pride festival agenda. It’s all about expression through pride.”
The pride festival’s vendors and participating organizations will come from across the Cache Valley and the state, including the Utah Pride Center and Equality Utah.
With election season just weeks away, Bitton said, you can expect booths from politicians as well.
“Candidates are coming that want to reach out to people,” he said. “They’ll have booths and eventually we’ll invite them to introduce themselves and speak while they’re there.”
Two big Utah names are going to be showing up.
Mike Weinholtz, Utah’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee, will be making his way back up to Logan with a booth —less than two weeks after debating Gov. Gary Herbert at Utah State University. In addition to Weinholtz, Misty Snow, the first transgender nominee from a major party to run for a U.S. Senate seat and challenger to Sen. Mike Lee, will have a booth. Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski and Utah State Senator Jim Dabakis were both invited, Bitton added.
The festival, which will be run by around 40 volunteers, is slated to begin at 9 a.m. with its last scheduled event starting at 10 p.m.
Bitton said Logan doesn’t have many similar events, and he hopes to see a lot of community members enjoy the fun, family-friendly event.
“We want to welcome everyone down and celebrate diversity and difference,” Bitton said, “and have a good time celebrating everything that makes us unique.”
The Logan Pride Festival is a program put on by the Cache Youth Resource Center, which is open from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information about the Logan Pride Festival, visit loganpride.org