vercher-dennisFormer Dallas Voice editor Dennis Vercher’s collection of papers is now online on the University of North Texas Portal to Texas History, which includes the LGBT collections.
Vercher was the first writer hired by Dallas Voice founders Robert Moore and Don Ritz. He remained on staff and edited the paper until shortly before his death in the fall of 2006.
“Dennis Vercher was a prominent journalist and community activist in Dallas, Texas. Vercher served as the senior editor of The Dallas Voice from 1986 – 2006, during which time he reported on a multitude of issues impacting the LGBT community during the AIDS crisis,” UNT wrote in a press release about the collection.
Dennis was meticulous about filing and sorting everything from his notes to documents he kept.
“The collection contains correspondence, newspaper clippings, financial documentation, press releases, and other materials related to LGBT activism, HIV/AIDS, and anti-discrimination legislation,” UNT’s introduction to the collection explains. “The Vercher Collection is part of The Dallas Way GLBT Collection of the UNT Libraries, an interrelated series of personal collections created by the Dallas Way community.”
Among the interesting papers Dennis kept were notes about the Dallas Morning News rejecting a National Coming Out Day ad in 1988, a letter from Gov. Ann Richards in 1990 and a letter to the editor from Dale Wesley Biddy apologizing for burning down the AIDS Resource Center, the Round-Up Saloon and Union Jack on Cedar Springs Road.
Personal note to UNT: If you expect papers from me, please understand that even I can’t read my notes more than a day or so after I’ve taken them. What I have is a pile of old notes with not a clue about what they’re in reference to. And if you’d like some papers from editor Tammye Nash, well her sorting and filing is worse than mine. And care to document the arts? Well, I dare you to even wade through Arnold’s office.
(Note from Tammye Nash: Hey! We publish a paper every Friday and UNT archives that!)