Distinguished Service Award to Will O'Bryan

Presented by D.C. Allen

GLAA 41st Anniversary Reception
Washington Plaza Hotel
Thursday, April 26, 2012

Will O'Bryan began his career in journalism in the mid-1990s in Portland, Ore., working for the region's twice-monthly LGBT newspaper, Just Out. He returned to the D.C. area in 1999 to work for the Washington Blade, where he had interned during college. At the Blade, he moved from news reporting to arts editing. By 2004, he was at Metro Weekly, where he has remained, first as a community reporter, now as managing editor.

In the course of that work, he's been privileged to interview amazing people, from grassroots Eastern European LGBT activists in Romania, to Judy Shepard and Dr. Frank Kameny, to Frank Mugisha, who fights daily on the dangerous front lines of LGBT equality in Uganda.

Will has seen our community defend itself from external hatred, and grapple with internal questions of identity and strategy. What he has learned, foremost, is that all people, no matter their politics, disposition or history, are worthy of respect and of having their voices heard.

It is my honor and privilege to present Will O'Bryan with GLAA's Distinguished Service Award.

[Note: D.C. Allen leavened his presentation with ad-libbed additions, but you had to be there.]