Kay Wilkinson has been named this year’s Raymond Kuchling Award recipient by the board of the Black Tie Dinner.

David Gifford-Robinson, Black Tie Dinner co-chair, said, “We are honored to recognize Kay Wilkinson for her many years of support, activism and leadership in the LGBTQ community. Kay’s commitment to our causes and willingness to speak up make her an exemplary honoree to join this impressive list of leaders who have been recognized with the Kuchling Award.”

Wilkinson has chaired or assisted with an extensive list of organizations in her years of activism, dating back to the beginning of the AIDS crisis. She served on the Turtle Creek Chorale board for 10 years, including three as board chair and three as chair of the advisory board.

She was also among the founders of the supper club at AIDS Services Dallas, regularly cooking for and feeding residents of Ewing House.

“The Ewing kitchen at the time was a disaster,” she said.

Wilkinson raised money to redo an interim kitchen so that it was usable until an industrial kitchen could be installed.

More recently, Wilkinson has been a board member of The Dallas Way. She helped create some of the original fundraisers for the organization to help cover the cost of digitizing material donated to the LGBT archives housed at University of North Texas and mounting exhibits from those archives. One such exhibit remains on display on the seventh floor of the Erik Jonsson Library through the summer.

She also has emceed a number of Outrageous Oral history programs for The Dallas Way.

Before beginning her career as a mortgage banker, Wilkinson was an English teacher and has volunteered for head start. “It’s so important to give pre-K kids a head start in reading,” she said.

Her other civic activities included teaching swimming with the Red Cross and training young children be lifeguards.

After moving to Oak Cliff in the early 1980s, Wilkinson was active in area code enforcement and neighborhood revitalization in Winnetka Heights. She was active in the Old Oak Cliff Tour of Homes, now one of the largest and oldest home tours in the city.

From her Oak Cliff home, Wilkinson held a number of fundraisers to support Equality Texas’ efforts to repeal Section 21.06 of the Texas Criminal Code, the Texas sodomy law found unconstitutional in 2003’s Lawrence v. Texas case. The theme of her parties was to donate $21.06 toward the repeal effort.

Wilkinson is an avid bridge and spades player, and she has been active in a book club that’s been meeting for 25 years.

This year’s dinner will be held at the Sheraton Hotel downtown on Nov. 3.