The Oak Lawn Investment and Travel Association doesn’t deal with investments and they don’t travel

DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com

It is called OLITA — the Oak Lawn Travel and Investment Association. But it has nothing to do with investing, and, originally, it had nothing to do with travel. But when the name was created 50 years ago, there was a reason for the subterfuge: It was done to throw off the Texas secretary of state who, way back in 1973, probably wouldn’t have approved the incorporation of a gay organization.

That idea of groups creating names for themselves that deflected attention away from what they actually did became common practice in the LGBTQ community in Dallas during the 1980s.

The AIDS Resource Center, for example, incorporated as the Foundation for Human Understanding because people with money would write a check to humans who were understanding but not to a group dedicated to fighting AIDS. And the longtime chorale director Tim Seelig always said the Meyerson was willing to rent the hall to the Turtle Creek Chorale, but they would never have allowed the Dallas Gay Men’s Chorus to perform there.

In OLITA’s case, group organizers were simply looking for personal safety.

The early years

According to Bob Stutz, who’s been a member of OLITA for 43 years, when OLITA first formed, Dallas police were still routinely harassing patrons of gay bars and running the license plate numbers of the cars parked outside those bars. Then the Dallas Times Herald regularly published the names of those folks who were harassed, who owned those cars.
Gordon Markley, current OLITA president, explained, “A group of gay men decided that once a month they would gather in private homes, creating a safer space for targeted folks to socialize.”

On Feb. 4, OLITA will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a dinner at the Melrose Hotel. Why there? Because in 1973 when OLITA was formed, the gay community had begun moving to Oak Lawn, renovating what had become a rundown area of the city, even though it would be five years before the first gay bar moved to Cedar Springs Road.

Markley noted his organization is definitely making history as the oldest continuously-operating gay social organization in Dallas. But it is likely that OLITA is the oldest-continuously operating LGBTQ organization of any kind in Texas. And it is very probably the first gay organization in the state to incorporate.

The group also distinguished itself in a different way: While the gay men’s bars at the time tried to keep women out, OLITA has always welcomed women into its ranks. “It was just a bunch of nice guys, and we had a good time together,” recalled Leza Messiah, who was a member for 10 to 15 years.

There have even been a few straight members. One was a woman who grew up with her gay best friend. They both moved to Dallas together, and she joined OLITA with him. Her friend eventually moved away, but, for a number of years, the woman stayed.

Stutz remembered a straight couple who were members for a number of years. The husband was Baptist. “I have no idea what attracted them,” Stutz said, but he remembers them as fitting in with the group just fine.

On the agenda

Usually OLITA holds its monthly get-togethers at a member’s house. That member is joined by four to six other members as cohosts, usually people who don’t have a home large enough to hold 50 or more guests.

To shake things up, sometimes the host committee comes up with a special theme or even an odd location. On the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, the chef at Park Gate, the old Braniff flight attendant school on Wycliff, created a special dinner. Based on the 12-course menu that was served on the ship, he came up with a six-course meal for the group. After dinner, they watched the movie together.

On another occasion, a group of merchants in Bishop Arts District stayed open late especially for OLITA. They served wine and nibbles as members of the group moved from one store to the next, nibbling, sipping and shopping.

And while “travel” was included in the group’s name, even though it wasn’t intended to be part of the group’s agenda, travel did actually become part of OLITA over the years. For about a decade, Stutz said, a group of OLITA members spent Thanksgiving together in Puerto Vallarta, which by the early 1980s was already becoming a popular gay destination. In 1982, as many as 34 OLITA members.

A smaller group went to Acapulco, and some members also spent long weekends together in New Orleans. Stutz said travel was always easier to plan when a travel agent was part of the group; travel declined for OLITA when travel agencies closed in the 1990s.

Other OLITA activities have included working the door at and then participating in the chorale’s old Antiques to Zebras auction and a day of kite flying in Lewisville.

For a number of years, John Lemmons, who owned a bar called John L’s on Wycliffe Avenue, worked with OLITA on an annual fundraiser that distributed money to a variety of organizations. Stutz remembers his group sending out 1,200 invitations one year and having 500 show up at Lemmons’ home and paying the $10 admission.

OLITA raised thousands of dollars with that event — money that they distributed among struggling AIDS organizations. But, after a number of years, John L’s suffered some weather-related damage. “They lost money, and we never did it again,” Stutz said.

Over the years, other social groups have formed, including Airliners and Lakewood Social Club which have both now been around more than 40 years themselves.
But OLITA was the first.

Membership is capped at 50 members. Some, like Stutz, have stayed for decades. Markley jokes that with only 26 years of membership under his belt, he’s the newbie. Messiah said she left only after her closest friends in the group died from AIDS.

Stutz said the only rift he remembers happened during the height of the AIDS crisis. Some members wanted the group to become more activist. While many already supported the newly-formed AIDS organizations, they wanted OLITA to remain a place of refuge, to relax and escape from the pandemic that was decimating the community.

So some members left, but OLITA remained what it had always been — a social club — and, on Feb. 4, members will celebrate the group’s first 50 years while looking ahead to many more years to come.