Damn you Ira. Damn you for leaving us. I intend to be mad at you just once last time.

We first met centuries ago. Actually, it was about seven years back but it feels like forever. We were part of a grand idea, an exciting new venture for our community. Asheville needed an LGBTQ newspaper and we were going to make it happen.

“We” were a hodgepodge of gay men, lesbians, transgendered, and a couple of folks that did not fit into any category. As is inevitable, a lot of the people fell away over the first years of Out In Asheville (OIA), after all, birthing a newspaper was not a trouble-free or painless endeavor.  When Ira and I looked up, it was the two of us, a couple of contributing writers and my partner Kathie as resident photographer… that was it.

I wrote article upon article under four different pseudonyms, did interviews, and helped with distribution. Ira beat the streets getting ads, attending every single event that might be remotely newsworthy, mingling with every segment of our community, and laying out the newspaper till the wee hours of the morning. It was a challenge but we were having the time of our life!

Asheville NC – The Western North Carolina AIDS Project (WNCAP) announced today that sections of the AIDS Memorial Quilt will be on exhibit as part of planned World AIDS Day activities beginning on Monday, November 23 and continuing through December 2. 

This year WNCAP reached out to the WNC community, providing an opportunity for residents to request specific panels of the Quilt.  The response was overwhelming – mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, partners and friends sent in requests for quilt panels that memorialize their loved ones.  Many of those will be included in the display.

Other special panels featured this year include quilts made for Ryan White, the Indiana teenager for whom the nation’s largest federally funded program for people living with HIV/AIDS was named (the Ryan White Care Act); Marty Prairie, a North Carolinian who was known as an educator and crusader on behalf of those with HIV/AIDS -- not only in North Carolina and the United States, but around the world; and Rudolf Nureyev, the Russian dancer who died from AIDS-related complications in 1993 and is remembered for his enduring contribution to the world of dance. 

Several new panels created for local residents will also be inducted as part of this year’s activities.