Kirk Myers-Hill, right, riding in the Pride Dallas parade with his husband, Ricky Myers-Hill
Since the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s, which reached its peak here in North Texas in the late ’80s and early 1990s, not a year has passed that our community has not suffered significant losses. The discovery of new and ever-improving treatments for HIV slowed those losses significantly, but it has not ended them.
This year, however, the North Texas LGBTQ community lost two longtime leaders, though neither to HIV or the latest scourge, COVID-19. While one — Kirk Myers-Hill — died suddenly and unexpectedly while the other — Dr. Brady Allen — died following a lengthy illness, both left our community reeling with grief.
Kirk Myers-Hill
Kirk Myers-Hill died Tuesday morning, April 4, while working in his office at the AIDS service agency he founded, Abounding Prosperity Inc., at the age of 54.
A 1986 of the Dallas ISD’s Business Magnet High School, Myers-Hill first became aware of the need for HIV education in Texas’ prisons during a brief period of incarceration, and from 1997 to 1998 he was a peer educator offering information on HIV/AIDS those incarcerated at the Mark Stiles Prison Unit in Beaumont.
Refusing to hide either his own HIV status or the fact that he had served time, Myers-Hill founded Abounding Prosperity Inc. in 2005, with the mission to provide services addressing health, social and economic disparities among Black Americans, with a particular emphasis on gay and bisexual men, cisgender women, transgender women and their families. In 2008, at the urging of his mother Irene Trigg-Myers, he left his work as an independent training consultant working with Medicare and as consultant with the Centers for Disease Control to focus his attention on Abounding Prosperity, turning that organization into a nationally recognized AIDS services agency. In 2012, he testified during the Antiviral Drugs Advisory Committee hearings for the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, offering expert testimony on behalf of Gilead Sciences Inc. about the benefits of preexposure prophylaxis — PrEP — using TRUVADA to reduce the risk of sexually acquired HIV-1 infection. This partnership resulted in Abounding Prosperity Inc. receiving one of the first community education grants from Gilead Sciences to support increased awareness and utilization of PrEP, and to Myers-Hill helping develop a statewide plan to increase PrEP awareness and utilization.
Over the years, Myers-Hill worked with Dallas Southern Pride, eventually becoming CEO, founded Black and Latinx Ball/House and Pagean Communities Leadership and Health Disparities Conference and DSP’s annual Juneteenth Festival. He also co-founded the Muhlaysia Booker Foundation and played a vital role in numerous other organizations and events, while winning many awards through the years. In September 2022, Myers-Hill was named grand marshal of the first Pride in Dallas parade.
He is survived by husband, Ricky Myers-Hill; siblings, Michael Myers (Renita), Kenneth Myers, Kelvin Myers (Brandy) and Michelle Myers-Stephens (Andrew); nephews, Michael Nicholson (Vanessa), Donielle Nicholson (Morningstar), Kyron Myers (Lauren), Kyle Myers (Kristen) and Xavier Myers; five great-nephews and two great-nieces; one great-aunt, Virginia McIntosh; first cousin, Jason Trigg (Kenyatta); mother-in-law, Regina Jefferson-Hill; sister-in-law, Haji Hill, and a large extended family including Joe Glover, Darwin Thompson, Damon Johnson, Ahmad Goree, Darrin Wayne Robertson, Marcus Paris, his “work wife Tamara Stephney and a host of others.
Dr. Brady Allen, right, with his husband Michael Layton
Dr. Brady Allen
Dr. Brady Allen, a pioneer and nationally recognized authority on HIV medicine, died on July 11.
In the early days of the AIDS crisis, he was one of the few doctors who would treat patients with HIV at a time where we knew little about the virus and had few treatments for the disease. In 2007, he received a lifetime achievement award from former Surgeon General Dr. Jocelyn Elders.
He founded and his legacy will live on through Uptown Physicians Group.
Dr. Allen was born in Port Arthur on Aug. 21, 1953 and attended Bishop Byrne High School, graduating as valedictorian in 1971. He attended the University of Texas at Austin and graduated summa cum laude in 1975, then went on to obtain his M.D. degree from University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, finishing fourth in his class in 1979. He completed his Internship and residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital in July of 1982.
Dr. Allen spent 36 years delivering compassionate and comprehensive care to the Dallas LGBTQ community. In 2002, he served as the grand marshal of the Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade. He sat on various boards, including AIDS-Arms Network and the Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS.
He is survived by his husband, Michael Layton, and two brothers. A memorial service was held at Cathedral of Hope on Oct. 6.
— David Taffet & Tammye Nash
2023 Obituaries in Dallas Voice
• Edward “Eddie” Michael Caswell, 68, of Dallas died Nov. 23, 2022.
• Terry Lynn Bucher, 69, of Dallas died Feb. 12.
• Tanya “BJ Laray” Halle, of Houston and formerly of Dallas died Feb. 21.
• Barclay M. Bollas, 92, of Euless died March 16.
• Foy Clifton “Sonny” Pine, 86, of Dallas died March 21.
• William “Bill” Verne Leazer, 93, of Dallas died May 6.
• Jesse Tafalla Jr., 60, of Dallas died June 6.
• Ronald R. Wilkinson of Dallas died June 6.
• Douglas Fonville, DDS, 66, dentist at Ideal Dental and TCC member, died on July 5.
• Debra Rutherford Thompson, 86, died July 29 at her home in Highland Park.
• Richard Longstaff, 84, former owner of Union Jack, died in July in Pompano Beach, Fla.
• Judge Jack Hampton, 91, notorious for having given a convicted murderer a lighter sentence because the victims were gay men, died in July.
• Bruce R. Coleman, 62, of Dallas died Aug. 15.
• Juan Miguel Aguirre, 53, formerly of Dallas, died Sept. 29.
• Gary Wayne Poe, 73, formerly of Dallas, died Sept. 30 in Columbia, Tenn.
