Fresh from attending the opening of the beautiful new Resource Center Health facility in Dallas on May 5, I found myself reopening chapters in Dallas LGBTQ history I had forgotten. Thanks to the Center’s History Wall, I recalled the amazing journey we started in the early 1980s, leading to the opening, including the many hard times and trials of the “Dallas AIDS Era.”
At the opening I saw Dale Clark, who was the second employee at the former Dallas Gay Alliance/AIDS Resource Center storefront on Cedar Springs Road before the “great fire” of Feb. 23, 1989. Dale was the “front desk,” fielding endless questions about HIV prevention and where to get help, and he served as an information booth for many DGA activities and fundraisers.
Like all of us, Dale is a bit older now. But he has become one of the world’s leading authorities on saving Monarch butterflies. The flight of the Monarch is similar to our fight against the odds of government indifference, ignorance and prejudice. Dale still lives in the Dallas area, and we joked that his payroll checks never bounced.
It was good to see another longtime contributor to our effort, Dr. David Nesser. David and his late husband, Bob Shields, were reliable financial contributors to our cause. Many people had “issues” writing checks with the word “gay” on them, but David and Bob were stalwarts in helping fund many DGA initiatives: the AIDS Resource Center, the community center, our education programs, the food bank and, perhaps most importantly, the AIDS Financial Assistance Fund that paid for vital community needs.
In addition, David and Bob gifted a house behind 2701 Reagan, which was eventually sold, and those proceeds funded additional programs. Still practicing medicine in Dallas, David was one of the first physicians willing to lend his name to the Center’s advisory board when names were hard to come by.
The opening of Resource Center Health also reminded me of the early days of our fledgling food bank, which started with a flood of donations from individuals, initially funneled through our store, the Crossroads Market. Bill Hunt was vice president of the DGA, and, although unpaid, he took ownership of the expanding food pantry during a time when food was scarce, before the DGA affiliated with the North Texas Food Bank. Someone donated an old box truck that Bill used to collect donations for the food bank and our two resale stores, “RetroActive.”
Where Bill got so much food was a mystery to me, so one Saturday morning I decided to accompany him on his rounds. Unknown to the board, the gifted box truck had no brakes, and Bill devised an ingenious way to plan ahead for stops.
One of our first stops was Industrial Avenue, where Bill sorted through boxes of what we called “train wreck” food. Accidents involving tractor-trailers hauling pallets of food destined for grocery store shelves or distribution centers became a major source of inexpensive supplies for our food bank. Unidentified food or food without labels was called “Supper Surprise,” and if it turned out to be dog food, we asked clients to return it so we could repurpose it for clients with pets.
While our system worked surprisingly well, we eventually ran into trouble with the Health Department. A health inspector arrived and informed us that we could not distribute unidentified items to clients and that we needed a triple sink to wash cans. If we did not comply, she said, she would have to issue a citation and shut down the food bank.
I asked her if she could give me a few minutes to call the local television news stations so they could film her closing down a vital resource serving an ailing population. It caught her off guard, and after a phone call to her supervisor, she issued us a “temporary permit” so we could continue operating.
The “Center,” as it came to be known, became a thriving gathering place for many groups.
The back room served a variety of purposes: educational and informational programs, fellowship and a second home for numerous organizations. The only standing reservation was Monday nights, when the DGA board held its weekly public meetings.
The late Craig Hess was involved with one of the groups that used the Center: Theatre Gemini, which staged “theater in the square” productions. Craig later became the Center’s volunteer coordinator, carrying out Bill Nelson’s mandate to “give everyone a job.” It was not uncommon to see Craig walking down the hallway with his arm draped around the shoulder of someone struggling with concerns about their HIV status on the way to meet volunteer HIV educator Mike Richards.
With Mary Franklin later running the food bank, Craig coordinated the work of many volunteers across the Center’s various programs, education, outreach and the Food Bank.
The organization also published two weekly newspapers: Dialog, the official newspaper of the DGA, and AIDS Update, the official newspaper of the AIDS Resource Center. Entirely produced and distributed by volunteers, both publications enjoyed wide readerships. Before the rise of the internet and instant communication, AIDS Update served as a primary source of information on emerging treatments and medications.
Another individual crucial to our work was Dr. Douglas Crowder, who volunteered to oversee the AIDS Financial Assistance Fund while chairing the foreign languages department at the University of North Texas. Dr. Crowder was not a wealthy man, but I know some of the checks he wrote to cover dead car batteries, new tires, rent and other emergencies came directly from his personal account. Each week, he provided the board with a list of clients and the amounts they received.
I once asked DGA board member and treasurer, Jeffrey Campbell, how we were covering all those checks. He replied, “We aren’t. Dr. Crowder covers them.”
Doug also had a direct pipeline to Ruth Collins Sharp Altshuler, a Dallas philanthropist known for supporting many organizations, including the Salvation Army. After one meeting between Doug and Mrs. Altshuler, the Salvation Army quietly lifted its prohibition against providing beds to homeless AIDS patients and began making a series of $10,000 contributions to the AIDS Resource Center and the Assistance Fund.
One day, while walking through the Center, I noticed an incredibly overdressed woman who looked as though she had just stepped out of a high society function. I asked the Center’s executive director, the late John Thomas, about her. John explained that the Junior League of Dallas had listed us as one of its designated charities for volunteer work credits.
From then on, it was not uncommon to see women in high heels and pearls standing shoulder to shoulder with volunteers in the unairconditioned food bank, where summer temperatures were often suffocating.
The late Bill Nelson, who envisioned transforming DGA from a mostly political organization into one more broadly focused on service delivery, had another “brilliant” idea to save money: buying whole chickens that board members and volunteers could cut up and repackage for clients. First of all, the smell was atrocious, and despite our brief training, some chicken parts became entirely unrecognizable after being hacked into pieces.
Someone who has been instrumental in advising and counseling the gay community for decades is Dallas attorney Mike Anglin, who incorporated the original Foundation for Human Understanding (now known as Resource Center) and served in its early years as legal advisor to the board and to its executive director John Thomas. In fact, his legal fingerprints are all over the creation of several well-known and respected community organizations such as the DGA, Razzle Dazzle Dallas, the Turtle Creek Chorale, the AIDS Clinic, the Dallas Black Tie Dinner (which he co-founded in 1982), the Texas Human Rights Foundation (where he served on its first state-wide board and as vice president for 9 years), and, continuing today, with The Dallas Way history project, which he co-founded in 2011.
While this is far from an exhaustive list, I would be remiss not to mention Penny Pickle Krispin, R.N. In her work as a registered nurse and home health care specialist, Penny was one of the foremost Florence Nightingales of the AIDS healthcare effort. She probably started more IV treatments than anyone for AIDS patients and was often the last person many of them saw in their final days.
Penny would alert Bill Hunt when someone had passed away so Bill and the Center’s volunteers could collect any unused prescription medications. Those medications became a vital lifeline for individuals without insurance or access to treatment.
Was it illegal? Of course. But so was being gay in those days. Unlike the Dallas Buyer’s Club, started by another volunteer, the late Ron Woodroof, we did not charge for the medicine. Ron educated himself on the latest HIV news, drug trials, successes, and failures, and answered the Center’s AIDS Hotline.
In observance of the May 5, 2026, opening: Resource Center Health Building
Some will look at me and say,
“What a beautiful facility.”
But I am not simply steel and stone.
I am a philosophy.
I am the evidence of what can rise
when people refuse to look away.
My cornerstones are not only
concrete — they are laid on the shoulders
of those who believed
service matters.
I began in a small office
on Cedar Springs,
born not from comfort
but from conviction.
The landlord came to collect rent
that could not be paid. He understood, he said,
Pay what you can next time,
As he dropped off food for my shelves.
Kindness and generosity
are the essential load-bearing pillars
of my structure and support.
Medicine was collected from the dead,
to be given again to the living.
Dozens came each week to clear their lungs
of PCP and certain death,
paying only what they could.
Only a few stood at the beginning.
A few who saw what others did not.
A few who understood
that silence in the face of suffering
is never acceptable.
My early days were hard.
Sometimes harsh.
The work was heavy
and the road uncertain.
My first home was burned; my second, a church
People looked past my ceiling for hope,
while their tears stained my chapel floor.
But crisis after crisis
called my name.
And with every call,
my purpose grew.
I was built
not because the path was easy,
but because the mission was necessary.
Today, some see walls and windows,
and rooms filled with light.
Through my halls, you find many open doors,
doors that were once closed to us.
I am a promise —
That courage will answer crisis.
That service will stand where fear stood.
That people who care deeply enough
can change the course of lives.
I stand today
because many stood before me.
As long as there are voices to protect,
lives to defend,
and justice to pursue —
my work
will never be finished.
William Waybourn served as president of the Dallas Gay Alliance when it created the AIDS Resource Center and the Nelson-Tebedo Community Clinic, now part of the Resource Center Health.