Johnson, Covell named 2008 recipients of Kuchling Award

From DallasVoice.com

News Lead Story
Johnson, Covell named 2008 recipients of Kuchling Award
By Staff Reports
Jun 26, 2008 - 9:47:39 PM

Historian, attorney to receive award during fundraising dinner in November; gay bishop will also be honored

For the first time in nine years, the Black Tie Dinner will present the Kuchling Humanitarian Award to two recipients: attorney Rebecca Covell and gay historian Phil Johnson.

BTD Co-chairs Randy Ray and Laurie Foley made the announcement this week.

“Both of these incredible individuals are beacons of tireless work and hope for our community,” Ray said in a written statement released Wednesday, June 25. “They also reflect our theme for this year’s dinner — ‘Stories Untold: Let Your Life Speak.’ Their stories and legacies are an inspiration to us all.”

Rebecca Covell

Covell said she “yelped with shock” when Ray and Foley contacted her to tell her she had been chosen to receive the award.

“This is such an honor and truly humbling when you consider the luminaries who have won this prestigious award. I asked [the co-chairs], ‘Are you sure there wasn’t some mistake?’” Covell said.

“Every day since, I find my thoughts returning to this incredible honor, and I smile,” Covell continued.

“Then I found out that an icon of the community, Phil Johnson, was the other recipient. I was thunderstruck. To share this moment with him is so special. I feel like I should carry his briefcase, not step on a stage with him.”

She added, “There are so many people who work tirelessly for the community. I feel a bit unworthy to receive the pinnacle of awards. But no, I am not giving it back!”

Johnson said he was “flattered” to have been chosen as a Kuchling Award recipient, adding that “receiving this award is one of those things that I never would have dreamed of, ever since 1947 when I started collecting gay and lesbian memorabilia.”

Phil Johnson

Johnson recalled the first time he ever heard of gays and lesbians getting organized, with the publication of the magazine “One, Incorporated” in January 1953. He later found out he was the only subscriber in the whole state of Texas.

“Everything has to start unusually slow. All of the leaders of the Mattachine Society predicted that some day we would have equal rights, but not in our lifetime,” Johnson said. “We have come a long way. Now we have the Black Tie Dinner, gay bands going down the street and all sorts of things.”

Covell has devoted “countless hours” to occupational and volunteer service, Ray said, noting that she has provided pro bono legal services to clients of the Legal Hospice of Texas — formerly Dallas Legal Hospice — for more than 17 years.

She co-founded the Women’s Business Network and has served at the national level as both governor and director of the Human Rights Campaign. She co-chaired the HRC National Finance and Audit Committee and also served locally as both the DFW Federal Club co-chair and the Dallas HRC Steering Committee co-chair, and she continues to be a member of the Dallas HRC Major Donor Committee, Ray said.

Johnson, a U.S. Army veteran from World War II, was born and reared in Dallas, and he has been an active participant in the LGBT rights movement from its earliest days.

In 1965, Johnson helped start a secretive social group called The Circle of Friends. It was the first gay organization in Texas. He was the grand marshal of the first gay Pride parade in Dallas in 1972, which was also the year he started the city’s first gay newspaper, “Our Community.”

In 1971, Johnson participated in the “Hug a Homosexual” booth at the American Library Association’s convention in Dallas, and in 1972, he attended the American Psychiatric Association’s convention in Dallas as part of an effort to convince the association to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.

Johnson is an avid historian and has been a leader in the effort to find and preserve any and all media concerning LGBT issues, as well as information on HIV and AIDS. Several years ago, he donated his vast personal collection to the Resource Center of Dallas, which renamed its library The Phil Johnson Historic Archives and Research Library in his honor.

Johnson has marched in almost every gay Pride parade in Dallas and in parades all over the country and the world.

He has also competed in the Gay Games numerous times, bringing home a number of medals as a swimmer.

Ray said that the Kuchling Humanitarian Award, presented each year since 1983 at the Black Tie Dinner, is given to individuals who have made “extraordinary gifts of their time and talents on behalf of the gay, lesbian bisexual and transgender community.”

The award is named in honor of the late Raymond Kuchling, a leading activist in Dallas’ LGBT community in the 1980s.

Last year’s Kuchling Award went to civic leader Roger Wedell.

The 2008 Black Tie Dinner will be held Nov. 22 at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel (formerly the Adams Mark Hotel) in downtown Dallas.

The event will feature an appearance by Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay man elected as a bishop in the Episcopal Church, who has been chosen to receive the 2008 Elizabeth Birch Equality Award.

The keynote speaker for this year’s dinner will be announced at a later date.

The first Black Tie Dinner was held in 1982, with 140 guests attending to raise $6,000 for the Human Rights Campaign Fund. In 2007, more than 2,900 guests attending, contributing more than $1.27 million to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and 18 local beneficiaries.

The Black Tie Dinner has distributed more than $11.75 milllion to its beneficiaries in its first 26 years.

Premium tables and special seating are available now through individual and corporate sponsorships, starting at $400 per person for a 10-person table.

General table sales and the Table Captain Happy Hour will be Sept. 9.

For more information, go to www.blacktie.org or call 972-733-9200.

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition June 27, 2008.