Kevin Hillman

Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with Kevin Hillman it's November 20th 2016 and we're at the International Gay Rodeo Association Annual Convention. So can you tell me about where you grew up?

RS: And what year were you born?

KH: I was born in 1957, so a few years ago.

RS: And with the registered herd did you do a lot of travel?

RS: And what was school like?

RS: Were you ever openly gay in high school?

I was raised in a Mormon family. I call it a very liberal Mormon family because my family was very inclusive of anyone. My mother was raised Methodist most of her life. So I had a very diverse family. My father's family moved away from Utah, to get away from the Mormons because he felt his family had been treated poorly. And since then some of my relatives have come into the Mormon faith, but...so I grew up with this thing that we accepted everyone for who they are and we looked for the best in people.

I had a mother that was…I didn't mean to get emotional there. I think a great example to me and my siblings, and my dad, of what it meant to be inclusive, to treat people fairly, and to...reach out to those who may need an extra little bit of a leg up. And she always ruled with an iron fist, so...she was the head of the household in a lot of ways! So I have a great family, I have four younger brothers and two younger sisters...and, so, it's pretty good. Pretty good group of people.

RS: So what did you do after high school?

So I like I said, I dropped out of college, my family really couldn't afford to help me. So I went to work full time and worked in banking and things like that. And when I was at college, I went to a Mormon owned college, my roommates kind of influenced me and I decided to go on a Mormon mission. So, I spent a two year mission at the Oakland, California mission first part of my mission was in downtown San Francisco as my first experience of being dumped into what made me start to think, “Oh, gay…maybe I identify with something here.” I was still at that point didn't really identify as a gay man, but I all of a sudden started to understand why things felt differently to me. And why my interests were different and probably why my high school friends were female...I looked at them as friends as much as anything as I did with my male friends no more than that. But there was never any “love interest” or anything, it was just...it just was an eye opening experience for me.

And I think to be honest with you, my mission opened me up to the possibilities of being able to be whoever I wanted to be. When I was on my mission I met doctors, I met street people, I met drag queens and I met a lot of different people who you don't meet in a little town in Idaho and so when I started dealing with being gay, and who I was, I wasn't feeling pigeon holed into being a drag queen or a hairdresser or something like that. I realized I could be whoever I wanted and I think that was a wonderful experience for me.

RS: Do you think you would have had that if you hadn't actually done your mission?

RS: How old were you when you broke off your engagement?

KH: Oh let’s see...I was probably 23. So, somewhere in that neighborhood. I'm trying to think how old I was when I got home from my mission but it was probably about 23 when that broke off so…it was probably the best thing I ever did for both of us.

RS: And after your engagement ended where were you living at the time?

While I was working for them, I chose to basically force the Mormon church to excommunicate me. Because of the belief system in the church they believe if you are a Malkestick Priesthood holder, one of the highest levels you can be as a lay person, had more responsibilities and that you had to act differently and if you weren't a member of the church you didn't have those responsibilities and you didn't have to live up to those things. So I felt for me at that point in my life was time to move away from all of that. Move that responsibility away from me so I didn't have that guilt part and basically went to the church and told them that I kind of liked boys...I don't know if you want me to tell you what I actually said!

RS: What?

KH: What’s that?

RS: Of course I want to know.

I stayed in Logan for a while. I worked for that bank for a little while longer. When I was ex-communicated I was discriminated against. I was told that of course this would always be a court of love and there would be nothing said outside of that meeting. The first day I was back at work, everybody there knew I had been ex-communicated because somebody had gone home from that court of love and told their wife who told their wife of my co-workers. And I was actually put on probation for no reason at work and I said to them, “Why is this happening? You need to give me an idea of why I'm being put on probation, what I can do to improve my work schedule or my work load.” I says, “If this is just because of the fact that you've now found out that I'm gay, it's wrong.”

Of course we had no rights at that time, they could fire me for just being gay. The board of directors had met that night at the bank and basically said we’re not going to go down that road. One of my good friends who worked at the bank’s father was on that board and said we need you to only judge him on the merits of his job. But because of that I actually told them I would be looking for a new job and I ended up working in the medical field then after that for a hospital chain.

RS: In Logan?

KH: In Logan Utah, whose corporate offices were based out of Salt Lake City. So…

RS: Did you have a better experience with them?

And the second gay bar I went to the bartender and I were chatting and we got talking about family and being from Idaho. “You look so much like my uncle that my mom had raised her two youngest brothers with us.” I asked him if he knew my uncle ‘cause they would be about the same age. He said, “No, but I have family by that name in Driggs, Idaho.” Well if he has family by that name they’re related to me! And so I said to him, asking what his was, and he told me so I asked him if he knew who would be his grandmother and he said “Yeah that's my grandma.’ And I told him who my grandfather was without saying that and he says “Yeah that's my great uncle.” And I said we're second cousins. So the first alcoholic beverage I ever drank in a gay bar was served to me by my second cousin. And he and I are very close in some ways and he still lives there in Salt Lake City and so we keep in contact. So, it was kind of a...it was really good to meet somebody who was family, and not only in the sense of my gay family but actually blood, and his friendship has meant a lot to me over the years.

I got involved when I got in Salt Lake with the Royal Court of the Golden Spike Empire which is a drag-based social organization and does a lot of fundraising and in Utah a lot of the organizations can trace their roots back to the Royal Court system. Rodeo, as well as many of the other organizations that are in Salt Lake, had maybe some seed there. Even our community center has some seeds that came out of that. Our Pride Day does and things of that nature.

I got involved with some gay organizations on the...in the shadows, I guess is another way to say it. I moved to Salt Lake City and while I was there I had an opportunity to go work for a medical software company who had bought the software away from the corporation that I was working with and it gave me an opportunity to travel around the country and then in that process I got to see a lot of people, see a lot of country, learned a lot of places I don't want to ever live, and places I liked. And I was able to deal with my sexuality by going out and seeing how different communities handled things and how things were different. The one thing I will say about Salt Lake City is that our female and male community have always worked very closely together and I didn't see that in some other cities. There was a definite divide. I went to a bar once and was told that I was on the women's side of the bar and that I needed to move to the men’s side, which kind of shocked me, because the gay bars in Utah...everybody was on the dance floor with each other and everybody was welcome to be there.

I quit that job after about a couple of years. I got tired of traveling, which I didn't think I ever would, I went to work for the US Postal Service. I tell people I'm a local street walker but I have to deliver mail to get a paycheck. So...and I've done that now for almost twenty-eight years, so I enjoy my job. It keeps me in good shape and when I moved back to Salt Lake and started with the post office is when I found gay rodeo again and started getting involved with that.

And because of that I got involved with the Community Council of Utah which is an organization of gay and lesbian groups and clubs and businesses in Salt Lake, because they put on our Pride Day. And I was so enthusiastic about it that I went in and, I'm a go getter and want get involved, volunteered really not knowing what I was getting into to be chair of Gay Pride for 1991. And, my co-chair was Brenda Voisard but Brenda had to resign and so I ended up with Deb Rosenberg for my co-chair. And so I had two wonderful gals that I got to work with for a while. We took Pride and moved it to a different location than they had been having it. We brought in the first outside entertainer, which we caught hell for doing, but our Pride celebration started to grow from there. We probably had about 3,000 to 4,000 people show up. And I did my first television interview and before I did that interview I called my mom and talked to her on the phone and told her I was going to be doing it. And I called a couple of siblings and they're like, “Okay, well, basically do what you have to do.” My mother never said I love you, my siblings did...that I spoke with...the ones that I felt I needed to talk to. And so I did this television and in the interview I invited everyone down and because of that the local skinhead organization took that as an invitation and showed up at our Pride day.

Pride day was very eventful for me in more than one way. I had been asked by my co-chair and her partner if I would father a child with them. So I went and was tested for HIV and other things and I got so busy that I forgot to get my test results. So Pride day was coming up that Sunday. I got a call asking if I'd like to come get my results, I had done this before, I went in on a Wednesday and they took me, I call it “on the trail from Nauvoo to Salt Lake back through the building to a back room,” and before we got back there I knew the results were going to be that I was HIV positive. I had worked in medical enough I knew enough about HIV to know it wasn't a death sentence at that moment but that I probably, at that time, only had ten years to live. I knew that I had zero converted back in November of 1990 and so HIV was something I was going to have to live with and try to figure out how to survive. And I literally at that point in my life looked at my life as being a ten year experience because people were not living much longer than that.

And so that was kind of funny because the gal that told me, I told her, “Well okay, well I'll deal with that later I've got to put on a party for 5,000 people on Sunday. I'm doing Pride day!” And she thought I was in denial. I went to my personal doctor, he said he would take me on as client, as a patient still, and so Pride day came around and I literally had no time to think about the HIV. I had to get one of my close friends and say listen if I fall apart today I need you to step in. And about the time I was ready to fall apart, because of the song the entertainer was singing, the Skinheads showed up! So I no longer had time to feel sorry for myself. So, I was able to move into that and move forward with that and had a hoot.

I had a wonderful Pride celebration and I've really never ever mourned my HIV. I have been able to wear it with a pride on my shoulder and that I decided when I came out as gay from...I was also coming out as HIV ‘cause I wasn't going to come out of the closet twice. So I got involved with the speakers bureau at the Utah's AIDS foundation to go talk to people about living with HIV, and also became an advocate in other ways for it, and had the wonderful opportunity for ten years of speaking to high school students and middle school students, different groups, community organizations, and church groups about living with HIV, the dangers of HIV and other STDS and sharing my experience and talking about what people were living with then. Half...about five years after that is when they came out with new protease inhibitors which has caused us to be able to live a full and successful life. And I have never ever had any real problems because of my HIV. Now my other health issues, like diabetes, is a different issue! But HIV never has.

And so because of that involvement with the Pride celebration, my HIV status, and my co-chairs at Pride, Brenda who wasn't able to be my co-chair and I started what we call the DIG Awards, which stands for the Diversity is Great Awards, to do a fundraiser for the community center and recognize people in our community had done things to improve the lives of gays and lesbians. Whether the person was an ally or whether they were a gay or lesbian person. I also got involved with the National Labor Union movement and was a member of their board for a short time. They were called Pride at Work and they were part of the FLCIL. So I had a very broad, very fast indoctrination in the early 90s of being a gay man.

And I enjoyed everything, made friends all over the country. And because of that my involvement in gay rodeo gave me an opportunity to have family in rodeo and be able to do the farm stuff you might say and some of the stuff I liked to do….being around livestock and animals and things like that. So it kind of came full circle from leaving the farm, to the 90s, to being involved with gay rodeo and the other things I was doing. My fingers were in a lot of places during the early 90s and then I started focusing more on gay rodeo in the early end of that time.

RS: How did you hear about gay rodeo?

When I moved to Utah, one night at the bar with the royal court system, somebody was saying that the Golden Spike Gay Rodeo Association was doing something. I went and introduced myself to them. That was before I had quit working for the medical software company. When I quit working for them I looked that group up again and they’d changed their name to the Utah Gay Rodeo Association. And they were seated that year at the IGRA convention and I became involved with them and in ‘91 I ran to be their “Mister UGRA.”

And so I was Mr. UGRA 1992 as a representative and fundraising director for the Utah Gay Rodeo Association. And I actually ran for Mr. IGRA, and made enough mistakes in my presentations at the IGRA royalty level, but I still ended up fourth out of ten men who were running for that title and made some life time friends from that and so that was how I got started with gay rodeo. Grabbed my horses from my family, loaded them in a horse trailer, and hauled them to the Phoenix Rodeo with my royalty team and my friends and we went down and competed at the Phoenix Rodeo and had a great time.

And that’s how basically I got heavily involved with gay rodeo and became totally enthralled with being a part of it.

RS: Which rodeo events did you participate in?

RS: Do they ever come to gay rodeos?

And then a few years later they come over and said, “Oh, Ryan is your boyfriend.” And they thought that was pretty cool they had figured that out. So my nieces and nephews are very supportive of me in the sense of my relationship and who I am, regardless of their religious affiliation. Some are Mormon, some aren’t, and so they’ve all been very supportive of me. I’m sure some of them don’t totally understand or agree with it but they have never really said it to my face. We disagree on politics and religion more than we do on my lifestyle.

RS: How did you meet your partner?

So anyways the story is, is I found out where he worked, I went to his work, he didn’t remember who I was from two or three nights before. He’ll tell you it’s because I didn’t look the same. My husband is not someone who pays that much attention to someone in the sense of how they look or what they are, he looks for certain things. So he asked me to write my name and phone number down after I had asked him out, and I think we were going to go to a bull riding only competition, and that was when I wrote my name and phone number down it still I don’t think clued him into that he had met me at the bar a couple of nights before! So that’s how we met and that’s when we started dating and that was on January 14 of 1995. And that was our first date and after that our friends were like, “You two? That’s not something we would put together.” And we did have a rough go to begin with, like a lot of gay couples. But we’ve been together now twenty-two years almost and I don’t see it going anywhere real soon. He puts up with my idiosyncrasies and that’s all that’s important. [Laughter.]

RS: Where did he grow up?

KH: What’s that?

RS: Where did he grow up?

RS: And was he ever involved with the gay rodeo, too?

RS: And you were re-seated as Utahs...

KH: The Utah Gay Rodeo Association closed its doors. They were seated in ‘89 and closed their doors in 2006 and a little over a year ago some kids in Utah decided they wanted to start it back up again, and I got an invitation to come and get involved and so as of the convention here in Austin, Texas in 2016 we have now been re-seated as the Utah Gay Rodeo Association and can move forward on putting on rodeos and convention and other things that IGRA sponsors.

RS: So why did it close?

When I started that hiatus a good friend of mine who had gotten involved...who was involved in gay rodeo and also with other things, I tell you, put me in a very bad spot. In Salt Lake City we have the Dr. Kristen Ries Community Service Award which is probably...Dr. Ries was the first doctor in Utah to start serving HIV positive patients and she had gone on, her and her partner, Maggie, would be two of the top HIV care patient specialists in the world. Both of them have now retired. I had the opportunity for her to be my doctor for some time.

Every year at our Pride celebration the community hands out the Dr. Kristen Community Service Award. So, I’m going to toot my horn a little bit, and I was actually honored with getting that award. Again, I didn’t expect to get emotional. Having it named after her and having her ride with the gay pride parade was probably one of the highlights of my life and probably the second highlight was when we had our rodeo in Utah the sons of bitches didn’t tell me that along with Aunty Dee, who is...we call her “the mother of gay rodeo” in Utah, our grand marshal had snuck in me to be a co-grand marshal with her and I didn’t know until the night of the award ceremony so those are two of the biggest highlights of my life when it comes to actually my gay life you might say.

Those two honors and especially them being given to me by my peers who I feel I couldn’t have done anything that they’re honoring me for without their support and without them doing the work they did and I got credit for it. So those are two very humbling, humbling, moments of my life. Sorry about the tears.

RS: In this new generation in Utah, are they young? Are they energized? Do you think it’s...

They come back to that family farm thing and I think because of the devastation that happened in our community that generation now is just starting to mature to the point where they’re going to start looking for something besides the bars and besides partying and gay rodeo is a great place for them to land. It’s a healthy, athletic sporting type event and it’s a great family. It’s a great group of people to be involved with and I’m hoping that we can reach out to them and bring them back in. We do have a lot of support outside of our organization.

A lot of people don’t want to be part of the organization but they will support us and I’m looking forward to working with all of them over the next few years.

RS: Do you plan to get back into the arena?

Some of the guys in Utah know that I know how to ride a horse. I won’t say I’m the best horseman. I’m a great critic but I wouldn’t say I was the best horseman. Or roper. I know how to throw a rope. But I’d love to get back involved in all of that and at my age, which is almost sixty, there aren’t very many rodeo associations or any athletic organizations that you can get involved in and still complete at the highest level.

And I’m in good health and good physical shape so hopefully I can get back in there and do what I used to do when I was completing in the ‘90s, so twenty years later, we’ll see!

RS: Yes. Yes I think so. Do you think you’ll do anymore entertaining?

KH: I have been, ah, entertaining at Salt Lake. When I was involved with Pride the royal court was putting on their first pride competition for a Mr., Miss, and Ms. gay pride. At the time I didn’t know it was their first. My co-chair Deb and I found out they didn’t have any contestants, so we went and ran for this title and we ended up with it. So, I have the honor of being the first Mr. Gay Pride of all of Utah, and so I do perform as Mr. Gay Pride and as Mr. UGRA 2002 and 1992. So I don’t mind getting up and performing. I’m kind of a ham anyway, so I enjoy lip synching and doing that stuff. So I’m sure I will. This is an awful thing to say but...we’re going to have a royalty competition in Utah in January and I’m not so sure...I might not run for Mr. UGRA again. [Laughter.]

RS: What’s your favorite thing to lip sync to?

KH: Oh I love country. Older country. 80s country music. And I like songs that are a little different or maybe a little story telling or things like that. I’m not into the new country sound of Florida Georgia Line or Keith Urban or some of those. The George Straits, the Neil McCoys, those people is who I probably lip sync to more than anything and probably my favorite person to lip sync to is a gentleman who was named Chris LeDoux. He...even sings the songs that other people have done such as George Strait, “Amarillo by Morning,” or...oh...I can’t think of his name now! But “Rhinestone Cowboy,” which both Chris LeDoux has recorded and I have recordings of...I actually prefer to perform that version of it than the versions that Glen Campbell or George Strait do, so. [Laughter.]

RS: Do you, like, costume and everything?

KH: Oh, I’m not much of a costume person. I will do a little thing. I did a number by Tim McGraw and, “Something Like That” is the song, and then there’s a line that says “I had a BBQ stain on my white t-shirt” so I wear a shirt and I take a BBQ stain and put it on my shirt. That’s about as much costuming as you’ll see I do. And then the only other thing I’ve ever done is we had a group of guys and we called ourselves “Ugly Girls Really Are,” U.G.R.A., and there was “Wildebeest” and “Utahna Montana,” and my name was “Blanched Trampoline” and we would do a camp drag where we would wear our cowboy boots and pull our pant legs up and put on a skirt and a wig and lipstick, and as you see I have facial hair and it was still there, and that was our way of just kind of having some comedy added to it and that’s the closest I’ve ever come to drag.

RS: What do you think the relationship is between the rodeo and the entertainment wing is today?

RS: So moving forward what do you hope to see in the coming years?

RS: Is there anything you want to talk about that I didn’t ask you?

KH: I can’t think of anything right off the top of my head, other than maybe the political climate we’re in now but that maybe is the worst thing we could ever talk about. [Laughter.]

RS: No, I, this is important. Do you think that’s going to affect, especially in a place like Utah...

At the same time I’m not afraid to yell once in a while to get the attention of those that I need to get the attention of to get that mutual respect. I have been at protests where I’ve been a little out there. [Laughter.] And I haven’t been ashamed of it but at the same time it never was meant to hurt it was meant to. I’ve been attacked when I’ve done booths at different organizations. An education fair, when I was doing an HIV booth, I was attacked verbally for a good four or five minutes by a gentleman before they finally came and removed him. So, I have had those opportunities to see what it’s like.

I have been fearful at times. I had a guy pull a gun on me once and it wasn’t the most awful thing but it wasn’t a pleasant thing either. It turned out to be something that I could get away from and not have to deal with. I was much, much, younger at the time and much, much, more stupid and naive. The situation probably wouldn’t have bothered me at all now if that same situation had happened. I would have handled it differently. But, ah, I see the world growing not only on gay rights but on women’s rights, on other rights that all people are to be treated equally and I’m hoping that someday our world can get there.

RS: Me, too. Thank you for your time today.

KH: No problem.

[Recording ends.]

Note: This transcript has been reviewed by the interviewee who made edits to portions of the interview. The transcript no longer matches the audio interview in the edited sections.