The UNT Libraries are honored to present, in partnership with The Dallas Way and UNT’s Pride Alliance, the 2016 installment of Outrageous Oral, the exciting storytelling series recounting GLBT life in North Texas. Make your plans now to attend on Tuesday, October 11, 2016, in The Forum (Room 140) of Willis Library on the UNT campus at 1506 Highland Avenue in Denton. The program begins at 7:00 pm.

There is no charge to attend Outrageous Oral events. Each Outrageous Oral presentation is video-taped and archived in The Dallas Way collection at UNT. Additional oral and written histories of people important to LGBT history in North Texas are also included in that collection. Materials are being digitized to allow world-wide access to this significant history.

For visitor parking information, please visit the UNT Transportation website. The closest metered lot to Willis Library is Lot 25 at the corner of Avenue C and Highland St.

Three presenters will tell their stories at this next Outrageous Oral.

Adrian Cooks is a student at the University of North Texas majoring in Political Science and minoring in Marketing. Adrian identifies as male with he/his/him pronouns and identifies as pansexual. Adrian has been involved with University of North Texas Short Film Club as a Director of Photography for the film Exuvia, was part of leadership for StartUP UNT Spring of 2016, an organization about understanding startup culture and is currently getting involved with North Texas Democrats, and Alpha Omega, a campus Christian ministry.

Adrian started his UNT career as a Radio-Television-Video-Film (RTVF) student. After issues due to personal commitments and a change of interest, starting Spring of 2016, he made the switch to political science and has been flourishing under the moniker since. For the start of his church journey, Adrian coordinated volunteering service in co-ordination with Christian Community Action in Lewisville and Alpha Omega in Denton. Adrian finds spiritual life and finding a community of individuals to be essential to development of a healthy individual.

Political science has been important to Adrian Cooks because he identifies strongly as a black egalitarian: a belief firmly rooted in equality and the hardships he faced growing up. He believes in through the process of political change, that society can be influenced for the betterment of all communities. Adrian is strongly for a secular country, because it puts emphasis on equality for all belief systems and eliminates discrimination on ideological grounds. Adrian currently works for Apple as the University of North Texas’ Campus Representative, and is considering going down the career path to being a salesman. His ultimate goal, however, is to work as a presenter for the Public Broadcasting Service, also known as PBS, for News Hour or Frontline or the National Public Radio service. He’s excited to share his story and prays that everyone can learn from his life experiences.

Alex Eller is an anthropology major and religious studies minor at the University of North Texas. They are the president of the Native American Student Association on campus and a senior.
Since a young age, they knew that they were somewhat different from their peers, not understanding the idea of “being a girl” or “being a boy”. They acted on their whims, childishly not understanding sexuality or the ‘proper’ ways to act or feel. As they matured, they fell in with friends who were gay and lesbian, giving them their first exposure to the LGBT community. It was then that they began to explore their identity.

Over the course of several years they came to realize that they had several identities that didn’t always mesh well together: nonbinary, bisexual, indigenous, Christian. Despite the fact that these identities seemed nonsensical or even incompatible to others, they took ownership of them and became deeply entrenched in activist and LGBT circles.

Alex fostered their self-esteem through this support system and began to take an active leadership role, finding themself passionate about those whose identities also intersected in unusual or ‘contradictory’ ways. They sought to bridge the gap between these identities and help others like themself foster pride and confidence in having a complex, multifaceted identity. They proudly advocate for the LGBT community and all the complex intersections that may exist within it.

Reverend Colleen Darraugh has been active in Denton County since 1990 when she became the first Pastor of Harvest Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), where she served for 10 years. Although she continues to live in Denton County, outside of the City of Aubrey, she has been the Lead Pastor for 12 years at Metropolitan Community Church of Greater Dallas in Carrollton, Texas. In the interim years, she did a variety of things including commuting for 18 months from Denton to a church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota! On the day of Marriage Equality, Rev. Darraugh co-officiated the first Denton County legal same gender wedding.

Over the last 26 years, Pastor Colleen has shared many points of intersection with the UNT community. In the early 90’s she was a community liaison and sponsor of COURAGE, the gay and lesbian student group and offered sessions dealing with Homosexuality and the Bible. Early on, she joined the UNT chapter of the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI) which offered diversity training on campus. Through her work with NCBI, Rev. Darraugh served as a community partner in the development and training for the UNT Safe Zone /Ally program. Rev. Darraugh was often a speaker on campus in classes dealing with homosexuality or feminism as well as on student hosted and resident hall panel discussions.

During her tenure with Harvest MCC, Rev. Darraugh was active in responding to HIV/AIDS. In addition to conducting many funerals and education events, her church obtained a grant to establish the first food pantry for persons living with HIV/AIDS (PWA’s) and the first day-care center for PWA’s. The church also provided space for the first Denton County AIDS Interfaith office.

Beyond local work, Rev. Darraugh was a speaker at a 2001 World Council of Churches Consultation on Human Sexuality. She was also one of the founders of The Women’s Chorus of Dallas!
Rev. Darraugh and her partner, Shelly Torres-West were legally married in Canada in 2005. They are the parents of a grown son, now 22 years old​.