Rob Emery wants everyone to know that Outrageous Oral 24, held in the Rose Room on Thursday, Jan. 26, broke all attendance records. By his court, more than 2,000 people attended, but by the middle of the event, his recount had attendance at 3,000 and by the end of the evening, 4,000. Emery is a wonderfully obsessed emcee, but what follows aren’t alternative facts.
This edition of Outrageous Oral recorded the stories of two groups in the LGBT community — Lambda A.A, and The Federal Club.
Tom told his story of finding the group and of the alcoholism in his family as well as the history of the group. The group currently meets at 1855 W. Mockingbird Lane across from the DFW Gun Range, where, he said, many members check in when they attend. Over Memorial Day, the group hosts Big D Roundup each year, which will take place at the Hilton Anatole this year.
Cathi Scalise moderated a panel of Federal Club leaders that included Alan Levi, Worth Ross, Anne Fay and Jaime Duggan.
Levi was a member of the founding group. He said his contribution was to begin to bring in the women, who were noticeably absent from the first meeting. That was because the other founders, he said, told him they didn’t know any. Levi knew plenty, invited them in, and women have been an important part of the group since then.
Originally the group was called Dallas Insiders. At the first luncheon, 49 people joined the group, pledging $100 a month to HRC. Other groups like this were being formed around the country to help fund Human Right Campaign. At the time, 49 was an incredible number — New York had 10 and there were only 60 members around the country.
When HRC prepared to purchase a new headquarters building, Lucilo Pena from Dallas chaired the building committee. Worth Ross arranged for Roger Staubach to negotiate the deal for HRC. Ross said there was some controversy about having Staubach do the deal, but Staubach said he had a number of LGBT employees, he’d turned down much larger deals with organizations he didn’t want to be associated with and that “he’d love his name attached to HRC.”
Politically, the panel noted that since Texas doesn’t have senators who represent our community, senators who do support the LGBT community often stop in Dallas for fundraisers. They called that a wise investment, because HRC has four staff members they’ve sent to Austin to help defeat bathroom bills and other discriminatory legislation this session.