Distinguished Service Award to Karen Armagost

Presented by GLAA Vice President for Administration Christopher L. Neff

GLAA 32nd Anniversary Reception
Radisson Barcelo Hotel
Tuesday, April 15, 2003

Karen Armagost is an activist, first and foremost, and that is why we honor her tonight. She is the activist who works the 14 hour day taping up campaign signs and then goes to the phone bank because calls still need to be made. She is the activist who volunteers when no one else will. She is the one who trains the new activists how to be activists and the veterans how to be better activists.

In the late 1980's Karen was one of the first HRC Fund Canvassers in the United States. In 1989 she became the Secretary of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, and served there for two and a half years. During this time she also was active in WACDTF, the Washington Area Clinic Defense Task Force working to protect abortion clinics from Operation Rescue and other protesters trying to block access to the clinics.

In 1992 Karen was elected President of the Stein Club and there she worked with GLAA, GAYLAW and many other groups to help pass Sodomy Reform and Domestic Partnership. Under her leadership that year Stein ran 19 candidates at the DC Caucus for Delegate to the Democratic National Convention -- at the time, a record number of GLBT candidates.

Stein also sent a delegation to the DNC with the DC Caucus to educate delegates about DC Statehood.

Karen was a member of the GLAA speakers bureau with Bob Dardano and worked with Gay Men and Lesbians Opposing Violence for a few years doing police sensitivity training classes at the police academy.

Karen kept grassroots as her base during all this time as a canvasser for the CLEC canvass network and meeting organizer. She then moved over to the American Association of University Women and later as a staffer to the 2000 re-election campaign of DC Ward 2 City Councilman Jack Evans.

In her spare time, Karen played tenor sax for the DC Different Drummers and was happily arrested for D.C. Statehood in 1994.

Karen now finds herself at Servicemembers Legal Defense Network as a vital player in the movement to repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

GLAA has had the tradition of awarding the Distinguished Service Award since 1990. It is presented to both activist organizations and individuals. I know Karen was a bit intimidated by the other awardees this year and the contributions that they have made. But this organization, this movement and its future are bound to the actions of those who do the work that no one else will, and ask nothing in return. That is what it means to be an activist, and on behalf of GLAA I am proud to thank Karen Armagost, one of the very best activists, for her years of distinguished service.