Sean Baugh and the Turtle Creek Chorale will perform Considering Matthew Shepard at Cathedral of Hope on Nov. 2. (Courtesy photo)

‘Could be any boy’ 

SEAN MIKEL BAUGH | Turtle Creek Chorale Artistic Director 

“I am open.
“To hear this story.
“About an ordinary boy.
“Who never expected his life would be a story.
“Could be any boy.”
—from Considering Matthew Shepard, Movement 3

Over the past few weeks, many of our Turtle Creek Chorale singers have been sharing the story of why the work,  Considering Matthew Shepard, is important to them. 

This is why I am singing the piece. It’s been a while since I’ve shared this story. 

Like many of you, I grew up gay in a very conservative environment — on a farm in the northeast corner of  Oklahoma. I lived on isolated farmland, but not too far removed from the sprawling  metropolis of Tulsa. I grew up as a member of and active participant in a tiny little Baptist church. 

I grew up not particularly realizing who I was — or what I was. 

I was, of course, intensively involved in music. I played piano at church for specials. I played  trumpet in the band. Throughout high school, I acted, sang and played. Some of you might know me  from my 1991 award winning performance of Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors, the pinnacle of my  acting career. (Insert hysterical laughing here.) 

I didn’t know other gay boys like myself in high school. There was only the drive-thru attendant at the Taco  Bell in my small town. And I would spend hours watching him, fascinated that there was someone  like me out there just living a normal life. 

It wasn’t until college that the realities of who I was started to clash with who I was “supposed to  be.” I began at the University of Kansas in 1991. In student orientation they told us to be respectful  of our gay and lesbian fellow students. I knew I was in the wrong place. I didn’t want to be gay. I  didn’t want to be around gays. It was a sin. I was bad … wrong … dirty. 

I left KU and enrolled at Oklahoma Baptist University to study music and pursue a life of music and  youth ministry. This was the path I was meant to follow. This was God’s path. 

It was at OBU, through a bizarre confluence of events (way too much to go into here), that the university begin “investigating my homosexuality.” 

By the time of my junior year, I was invested in the university and the life that it offered. 

I had one year left.

I began to receive calls from my friends, risking punishment, letting me know that the school was calling them in, one by one, and asking them if I was gay. I decided to save them the trouble, grabbed a trusted faculty member and confronted the leaders of the university myself. 

I was forced to sign a contract that stipulated I would not be  involved in “homosexual activity” to remain at the school. The contract also stipulated I attend anti-gay therapy, which lasted all of one session. Yet, I still  remained a student, and I began to do my student teaching assignment in nearby Oklahoma City. 

It was a Friday in October 1994, I suppose exactly 30 years ago, that I found myself with time to kill  in Oklahoma City before meeting up with friends that night. In the “gay area” of town, I met two guys, who, in hindsight, were chillingly similar to Aaron  McKinney and Russell Henderson (the two men convicted of murdering Matthew Shepard just four years  later). They tried to lure me back to their hotel, but I resisted, and ultimately we found ourselves  alone at a local park to hang out as night fell. 

In the remote area of that massive park there was a deep ravine surrounded by trees, boulders and  water. That’s the spot where these two boys beat me to within an inch of my life, using large rocks, fists and feet  while screaming “fag” and other taunts. They left me bloodied and immobile in that park ravine. The  reality was, they left me for dead. 

“Could be any boy.” 

I was found by a passerby who came to my aid and called for the police and ambulance. I was alive  but unrecognizable by even close friends. It took quite some time to recover, but I was alive. It haunts me to think what would  have happened if I had joined them at their hotel.  

Police never caught the two responsible. I doubt they even tried. 

“We are all sons of fathers and mothers. We are all sons,” Considering Matthew Shepard, Mvt. 15 

It was a few weeks later that I received a call from representatives of the university that I had been  found in violation of my contract, that due to the circumstances around the beating, I was involved  in “homosexual activity.” I was immediately dismissed from school with just a handful of months to  go before graduation. I was able to attend another school close by, and finally finished up in 2006  before moving to Dallas for grad school at SMU.  

The news of Matthew, just four years after my personal events, shook me to my core. The similarities of our lives and experience was astonishing. The skinny, sensitive, music and theater kids meeting two boys who showed us attention who then made us victims of pure hatred. 

I survived. 

Matthew did not. 

I might not have. 

I have since found a life of love, acceptance and hope: a community of singers who make every day  a thrilling one, a church where I have since rediscovered my faith and a support system of amazing  humans.  

I sing this work because I recognize, first-hand, the violence that can arise from hateful rhetoric and  belief. I sing this work because I see the same rhetoric being used against many marginalized  people:  immigrants, women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people. I see it being used by public officials; by people who call themselves our leaders.

I sing to help with my own personal healing. I sing so we remember. 

I sing this work because it is still important. 

Because it “could be any boy.”

The Turtle Creek Chorale performs Considering Matthew Shepard on Nov 2 at Cathedral of Hope. Visit TurtleCreekChorale.com for information and tickets.